Desson Thomson

It is a fascinating dance between style and substance.

Ultimately, we find ourselves looking for the wrong sort of clearing: a way out.

For those who simply want to drink in the northern Italian countryside and Tyler's physical details, it's quite an experience. But as a story, Stealing Beauty (which Bertolucci wrote with Susan Minot) is a misbegotten, sentimental reunion with old European cinema.

A documentary that knows to sit back and listen as [Dobson] expounds on a variety of subjects.

Laugh? I thought I'd never start.

It's a piquant story but unfortunately the movie creaks with European-style artifice. It tells its story in a rather cinematically stilted style, and some of the dramatic moments come perilously close to unintentional parody.

Actually, any fun you might encounter in Recall can be traced, most often, to director Verhoeven, who injects some of his "Robocop" camp into this mega-dumb project.

There'd be nothing wrong with this if the film 'fessed up to its kitschy soul. Instead, it pretends to be the high-minded drama it's not.

Makes a virtue of its own simplicity. But don't be fooled. That simplicity is mere cover. You're kept wondering about the outcome until the very end.

Although this dialogue-free, mostly animal-action movie has its moments, Gerard (The Name of the Rose) Brach's man-meets-bear scenario is barely a soft, high-budgeted muzzle ahead of the Disney wilderness pictures. [27 Oct 1989, p.N43]

Barry's deliberately unspectacular performance makes this even more powerful. He gives "Assassin" a disquieting authority.

This adaptation of James Hadley Chase's "Just Another Sucker" isn't so bad you'd want to roast it over the coals, but it ain't much good either.

Until its final stumble, this intelligence thriller, starring Val Kilmer, is charged with brilliance.

Its adroit use of suspense makes you overlook the silliness.

Brassed Off gets bogged down in sentimentality; and that political agenda is spread on thick.

In this banal era of smart-aleck parodies and homages, Last Man Standing amounts to stylistic overkill.

A pretty woeful affair...a sitcom disguised as a movie.

When Gray brings things to a narrative conclusion, the movie feels perfectly structured. If it were any longer, it would tip the overindulgence scale, and lose its effectiveness. But at 80 minutes, the film feels compact and pithily observed. And you're quite prepared to meet Gray on his next flight of self-absorbed fancy. [30 May 1997, p.N41]

In this loser-and-the-whore story line, Allen's sensibilities have taken a turn for the nasty.

It's hard to tell if this thing's serious or parody and, if it is parody, whether or not it's intentional. Is it a winky joke, for instance, to have lightweight performer George Hamilton as Pacino's business attorney, or just ridiculous casting? Hamilton's performance points to the latter.

Almost every scene has something to chuckle over.

Surrender and enjoy the spectacle.

Amid the violence, the one-liners ring out. Nobody speaks for real. It's as if they all know they're in a movie.

Then as now, visually pleasant and (of course) musically wonderful but, all-in-all, a mixed bag.

Turns out he's infinitely more likable than Vin Diesel, who carries his sense of stardom through every movie like an insufferable Atlas. In fact, Dwayne Johnson is a gentleman, the kind of Rock who puts you in a very easy place.

As a movie, this is exciting stuff.

The best element of the movie is a subplot involving Noah's spiritually obsessed teacher (Rainn Wilson) and his wacky girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn), whose bumbling eccentricities give the movie an emotional liveliness it otherwise lacks.

Although "Pluto" has a rollicky, endearing air, it's cooler than Jordan's other films.

The real deity of the movie is director Woo, who takes complete command of the latest technology -- hyperspeed editing, breathtaking cinematography, 10-out-of-10 stunt work -- to create brilliant action sequences.

Despite all the life-threatening situations, warrior deaths and heroic feats, it's hard to get behind characters who feel like lazy archetypes.

So disarming, it's hard to say anything but good things about it. So get in line. The doctor is in.

The film's first half is easily the best and brightest. As the movie moves into the more saddening sections, however, it loses most of its power.

Raimi offers all the fantasy, camp and hardcore horror you devoured in the comics. You can feel the pen-and-ink drawings coming to life. Dipping wittily into myth, the macabre and the modern, it's an effervescent adventure that's as amusing as it is genuinely gripping. [19 Feb 1993, Weekend, p.n38]

And thanks to great existential one-liners from scriptwriter Robert Harling (with appropriate plaudits to novelist Olivia Goldsmith, of course), gender warfare is made amusing for almost everyone.

If there's such a thing as freedom for everyone, Rory's determined to give the prospect its most grueling road test.

Attenborough's aims are more academic and political than dramatic. By following an initially wrongheaded white character, he clearly wants to reach out to similar audiences. Cry could have reached further.

An engaging battle between terrific acting and a flawed script.

I can recommend the first two-thirds of this movie with great enthusiasm.

It suffers from a dreary middle section. Great movie, mediocre script.

The story (adapted by Spielberg and David Koepp from Michael Chrichton's "Lost World") isn't much better than "Jurassic Park." And the predictability factor is high.

Love! Valour! Compassion!, an adaptation of Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play, which has piano music and exclamation points to spare, is excruciatingly predictable, creatively inane and almost offensive in its depiction of gay characters.

Ironically, Alien is not a bad movie. In fact -- here's the rub -- it's too interesting to make an exciting summer flick.

The scenario (written by Carl Binder, Susannah Grant and Philip Lazebnik) is disappointingly wan and obsequious.

Start lining up now, bring a bullwhip -- and maybe some d-Con. Indiana will do the rest.

After 9/11, few of us look at terrorist acts casually. It's insulting to watch this grandiloquent pornography, using shock value and Hollywood cliche to evoke poignancy.

There's a rampant looseness to this movie, and it's subversively liberating.

Even though he shows some master touches throughout the movie, Shyamalan flits a little too lightly across the surface, like a pond skater.

Reconfirms Tarantino's status as the master of pop cinema and puts a sense of excitement into the year. He has matched, if not eclipsed, the power and scope of 1994's "Pulp Fiction," though not its human charm.

Exciting, smart and enormously enjoyable.

It's great to watch the cat-and-mouse of it all -- even when the movie might not be firing on all points.

The movie has many of the elements that made the first "Dawn" so darkly entertaining.

Let’s just say that, for the right audience, Junior may deliver. But there’s a whole lot of pregnancy to go through first.

In old-fashioned movie terms, it's enjoyable, thanks mostly to Neeson who, not unlike Jeff Bridges, always eclipses your expectations of him. [25 Oct 1996, Pg.N.42]

It's a warm, often funny reunion of the sassiest, chattiest characters ever to buzz a brother's head. You'll like this one more than you'd expect.

At best, the movie is a problematic chamber piece; at worst, a misdirected, slightly misanthropic pretension.

Fabulous mental escape. It's fun and playful, rather than dark and foreboding. And there doesn't seem to be an original cyber-bone in the movie's body. But it's put together in a fabulous package.

If there's anything good to be said about Heights, it's Glenn Close's strutty, booming performance.

Monte Merrick's script is an unspectacular, cliche-riddled voyage from start to finish, with everyone lugging their own tote-bags of facile character idiosyncrasies.

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud and adapter Gerard Brach provide more than a few effective moments. Beyond her corporeal qualities, March is thoroughly believable. When she walks up to Leung in his car and plants a kiss on his window, her swoonish tentativeness gives the act incredible weight. But the story is dramatically not that interesting. After establishing the affair and its immediate problems, "Lover" never quite rises to the occasion. Scratch away the steamy, evocative surface, remove Jeanne Moreau's veteran-voiced narration, and you have only art-film banalities.

Unless you're a junkie for mediocre rejoinders and insults ("I know loan sharks that are more forgiving than you," Leary tells Johns), this is one holiday party you'll want to miss.

It canters along, content to follow the Rules of Cute and Fuzzy Horse Movies.

It's an eroticism of nastiness -- triple-X fare for dirty old men in raincoats. If you resist this sleazy gorefest, you'll be right to feel proud of yourself.

Even Thompson, the one you look forward to watching, is disappointing.

Playful as it is, Clare Peploe's adaptation of Pierre Marivaux's romantic comedy coughs and sputters on its own postmodern conceit.

A heartfelt but eccentric, pseudo-documentary tribute to his sister Maria.

Take the kids. Have fun.

Nonetheless, there's something life affirming in all of this. Even as most of us recoil with self-preservation at their feats, we also secretly applaud them pushing the envelope of mortality.

Sometimes big-time studio entertainment is done so well, you simply have to salute its corporate effectiveness.

To watch "Time" is not merely to marvel at the heavens we cannot yet know; it is also to admire Hawking, now 50, for approaching such daunting problems on a daily basis, despite every possible problem the cosmos can throw at him.

A crazy, intentionally ludicrous movie that's a lot of film-noir fun.

Hoffman's touchingly fractured performance gives the picture a warm dimension.

Director and co-writer James Marsh clearly thinks he has made a grim and telling satire about fundamentalist hypocrisy. But he and co-writer Milo Addica display such contempt for their characters and religious conviction in general, they reduce everything to one-note banality.

Though Hard Candy clearly believes pedophiles should be chopped into little pieces and buried in an unmarked grave, its only purpose is exploitative. Sure, it's a cautionary tale for all those sicko wolves out there, but it's nothing more than an unabashed lurk-and-dread fest.

A warmly spirited travel diary of a movie.

It's really no pain to sit through Object. Even at its most drawn out, the movie has its comic moments. Malkovich makes a perfect, plastic-souled being.

Isn't much more than another conveyer-belt romantic comedy.

Despite drawing from one of the most powerful and true stories from the Cold War, K-19 is only moderately moving.

This is a Reagan youth's wet dream of underwater ballistics and East-West conflict.

Nelson certainly passes muster for sincerity but, unfortunately, his movie doesn't have the same clear-cut quality.

It doesn't lack for emotional intensity or persuasive, three-dimensional characters.

Left-wing filmmaker's attempt to call foul on megamedia owner Murdoch's exclamation-point news network.

Cutting to the chase: In terms of summer movie thrills, director John McTiernan's return to the "Die Hard" genre (he made the first one) is a triumph.

Although it has moments of charm and poignancy -- this is one of Glenn Close's best hours -- the scheme and scope of the movie are just too darned obvious.

It's too bad Chan's imagination and delicacy were wasted in this movie.

All credit to Carrey, whose one-man performance is almost enough to redeem the movie.

A disappointingly dull thud of a fantasy.

At it’s core, it’s just another youth-culture flick about the search for love. It’s also a mediocre bid to join the shoestring pantheon of such filmic self-starters as Spike Lee (She’s Gotta Have It) and Kevin Smith (Clerks).

There's a deep, touching tale to relate about the man who went from Apache chieftain to circus has-been, selling his autographs for money. But don't look for stirring, touching or anything in "Geronimo: An American Legend." Look for the exit sign.

Sure, this romance, starring Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg, follows a familiar boy-meets-girl scenario, but Younger turns the routine into combustible fun.

A violence-intoxicated, far-fetched, morally corrupt drama.

But this cruise is also a gruesome one. You may find yourself shaken -- not stirred -- by the screenwriting cruelty and cynicism behind the 16th "Bond."

A movie that clearly aims to be a cool, picturesque modern film noir becomes another moody banality.

Even by its own please-the-mob standards, this movie is lacking.

In visual terms, it's clear McKee has a talent for moviemaking...But he's going to need better stories than this.

In this sprawling oglefest, such things as "narrative" and "story" are remote little abstractions indeed.

Brings things to an almost cheesy conclusion. Given the gripping, dark elements that creator George Lucas introduced in the two previous films, the third movie’s outcome smacks of PG-rated populism rather than artistic fulfillment. But the experience is still highly entertaining. [Special Edition]

A great director's losing battle against a goofy script.

Playing a mentally unhinged, almost wordless naif who finds true love with equally nutty Mary Stuart Masterson, he's supposed to invoke the silent comedian, with a little Chaplin thrown in. But he's just Edward Scissorhands without the scissors -- or the edge.

Myers, who created the original characters, has to make a feature film out of a teeny sketch. With cowriters Bonnie and Terry Turner, he fares better than you'd expect.

The joy of this movie, which features Joss Ackland as a memorably intimidating, Afrikaner-accented boss, is in the gradual revelation of intrigue.

Has its creepy moments, but also its cliches.

Often wickedly funny, but about halfway through, the premise becomes -- shall we say? -- intestinally overextended.

The movie may steal a base here and there, but there are no homers.

Aims for the fun and sensation of being inside a video game, but not a whole lot more.

Obviously, this was just meant to be a fun experience. But the movie fulfills those duties on the most mundane level. You have to treat Space Jam like that well-known fast-food Jordan loves to promote: It doesn’t matter how the movie is prepared, only that it’s served and ready to go.

In the end, however, when all Pacino's demons are bared, they don't add up to the poignant punchline you were set up for. The movie seems to have two or three finales too many -- a disturbing trend in all too many films of late.

What is surprising is the beguiling, unpretentious result: "Little Buddha," a modern fable about a Seattle boy believed to be a reincarnated Buddhist teacher, endears the audience to the Tibetan doctrine with a glowing, almost Disneyesque panache.

Unromantic, nonsexual and hellaciously dull.

Ejiofor was a revelation in "Dirty Pretty Things" as a Nigerian doctor forced to live illegally in London. Though he's charismatic as the husky-voiced Simon, he never transcends the movie's pandering agenda.

Cornish provides a counterbalance for Ledger's authoritative presence, turning what could have been just another heroin movie into a flawed but engrossing parable on love and sacrifice.

If you go to this, anticipate neither an endearing Quaid-Ryan vehicle nor a fully satisfying art film. By trying to satisfy opposing demands, Kloves misses the spirit of both and is left only with flesh and bone.

There are no dramatic peaks and valleys in this story line, just a uniform, dramatic flatness.

A movie that jumps between two worlds can be a powerful experience, as any fan of "The Wizard of Oz," "Back to the Future" or "The Terminator" can tell you. But this phoned-in epic is simply a celebration of the inauthentic.

You feel as though you're watching a filmed play rather than a movie. Nothing wrong with that. But The Human Stain, directed more than well enough by Robert Benton, doesn't reach the emotional pitch it's shooting for.

Zellweger is certainly likable as Beatrix, but as an upper-class English lady of a century ago, she enunciates her words as if sucking a lemon -- you almost start to wonder if you've stumbled into a satire of "Masterpiece Theatre."

Awash in hackneyed old-time secrets and hydrophobic metaphor, never consumes us as it should.

The story, a half-baked one about treachery and greed, meanders to an unsatisfactory ending with a punch line that, well, doesn't punch very hard.

The film should at least be wise and three-dimensional enough to see Ann's motivations as a source of mystery as much as heroic self-empowerment. This one-dimensional ennoblement doesn't sit quite right.

There's something hideously pretentious about the whole thing.

It's not every day that movies present a Teutonic character in SS uniform as an unambiguously moral hero, so enjoy this rarity. And the film.

Even by its own dark standards, the movie's conclusion is as dramatically dissatisfying as it is disturbing.

You may soon forget the specifics of the plot, but you'll always remember the world it came from.

The list of great moments is virtually endless.

Of all ironies, "Strangers" occasionally takes a step in the direction of the after-school specials it's trying to twit; you'll catch it trying to make you feel warm and fuzzy about Jerri.

But the film, written and directed by fellow artist Julian Schnabel, is so tender in its affections, these omissions and poetic licenses seem like the embellishments of a good friend.

The personable star of the TV series "Home Improvement" turns this Walt Disney film around. He may not be as effervescent as, say, Robin Williams, but he's full of understated, ticklish charm.

A leisurely paced, subtly funny, though verbally crude chamber piece.

Covers every cliche in the Hollywood sports movie playbook, but it also makes the routine much more enjoyable than you'd expect.

This finale turns Assisted Living from fascinating experimental film into something finer.

Unfortunately, screenwriter Sam Catlin and director Danny Leiner make the unexpected mistake of being too subtle.

Danner's performance, as she rages against the dying of the romantic light, all but steals the movie from Braff.

From the get-go, the story remains bogged down in its rather limited morass.

Moderately pleasing adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novella.

Wind is about the huff and puff that's needed to win the America's Cup regatta. It's about tacking faster than your Australian competitors. It's about winning for your country and yourself -- to stirring music. It's also about an hour too long.

There is one reason, and one reason alone, to watch Cet Amour-La. It is Jeanne Moreau.

There's every reason to watch Bread and Roses for what Loach really does best: He involves us directly in the desperate lives of his characters, who are forced to live without security and who have to compromise to make ends meet. And, above all, who feel as real as moviemaking allows.

Spielberg has made a small and charming story out of The Terminal.

Works far better as an idea than its execution; this has to do with the difficulties of making profound statements with limited budgets and technology, and also grappling with the still-growing sensibilities of an emerging writer.

Future II bombards you with more brand-name advertising than three hours of prime-time TV could muster, although repeat filmmakers Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis put a humorous twist on everything.

The movie Casanova, starring Heath Ledger, not only fetters the randy Venetian in political correctness, it condemns him to dwell inside the modern equivalent of a bad Shakespeare play.

Its strength is the documentary-textured depiction of Native Americans in their social environment. Its weakness is a story that's a patchy combination of soap opera, low-tech magic realism and, at times, ploddingly sociological commentary.

Has its moments. In fact, it has too many of them. At 2 hours and 20 minutes and with enough characters to take up a few floors at a big hotel, it feels about an act too long.

Actually, Spottiswoode's film has its moments.

As an amalgam of drama and history, Reiner and scriptwriter Lewis Colick strike a surprisingly satisfying compromise.

Charming enough.

One electrifying performance becomes the only saving grace of The Kingdom, a goofy action movie that tries to marry the blitzkrieg entertainment of "Rambo" to the cultural consciousness of "Syriana."

The sequel's plot is laughably thin.

Suffers from melodramatic overkill.

It's simultaneously arty, arcane and nasty.

A thoroughly gratifying prestige thriller, thanks to riveting suspense and two brilliant stars.

Doesn't try to be more than what it is: a romantic fantasy caper.

Surely it will not be giving things away to tell you there's absolutely nothing new about the latest episode.

The movie's ambitions (to pay tribute to the Czech pilots who fought for their country only to be interned later) are not matched by the actual story.

The movie finds charming humor in a world full of sectarian strife between Protestant and Catholic.

You're not watching anything original, you're just reexperiencing elements you've seen in a jillion other spectacles (including "Die Hard," "True Lies" and even "Mission: Impossible"), only with more heat, more crash, more burn.

It's almost too dull to pan.

Winter Passing is one dull, extended encounter session among hackneyed characters -- although Deschanel gets the most points for almost imitating a human.

With a few elements drawn from classic weepers, and with fairly spirited performances from the cast, "Heart and Souls" has its moments

Faraway...is vaguely deflating, a film that doesn't build to a powerful climax so much as gradually run out of air.

The film amounts to a harsh and perpetual assault on viewers' sensibilities -- not only because of its violence but because of its overall bleakness.

Greenaway's narrative and his direction of actors -- two elements which only recently has he concerned himself with -- are without foundation. After the effects of the visual presentation have worn off, the film becomes rather tiresome to follow.

Savvy without being smug, cute without being saccharin, and funny without slipping into over-the-top goofiness, this is a 14th-century good time.

After some promising leaps, bounds and swings through a fascinating jungle of possibility, Charlie Kaufman's movie misses an all-important creeper.

If the story seems a little waterlogged, it's still big, loud, and fun to watch.

With the exploitative brashness and twice the volume of his New Jack City, Van Peebles mixes rap with rawhide for a deliriously exaggerated entertainment.

Ironweed is decent fare, not excellent. It gets by on the strength of the unexpected.

This movie may appeal to the youthful, midnight-madness crowd, but there isn't enough in it to bestow it with classic B-movie glory.

Larded over with le fromage, which is to say, French cheese. But as these dairy products go, Christophe Barratier's movie is delectable sentiment. Audiences will crumble into itty-bitty pieces of Roquefort watching this.

This movie, set in the '60s and starring Cher, Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins, doesn't come of age so much as die of it. It's awash in mediocrity, waterlogged with innocuousness and redeemed only occasionally by sweet-faced Ryder.

Narratively club-footed but directorially assured.

Never feels original, even though it's enjoyable to watch Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and newcomer Peter Facinelli going at it with snappy patter.

A witty, raunchy comedy, which proves that a well-written piece of business – oozing with sex, wit and nasty intrigue – works for any generation.

Always entertaining. But someone seems to have thrown away the metronome into the Spanish moss outside. "Midnight," which finally draws to a halt after two and a half hours, has a lot of acting, a bit of soul and no rhythm.

There is but one reason to sign up for Driving Lessons: to watch Rupert Grint -- Harry Potter's redheaded pal Ron Weasley -- squaring off with Julie Walters, Queen of the English Scenery Chewers.

Should we really be so moved and uplifted that a horny, ignorant young man begins to join the human race? Not when our voice of conscience is an off-screen filmmaker issuing pseudo-profound, and ultimately banal, pronouncements about the true nature of love and seduction.

Seems to avoid any kind of edgy, precedent-making attitude, some point of view that feels charged, divisive and consequently alive.

Fails as the big-screen romance it wants to be. The main problem: There's only one heart between the principals, and it beats solely in Chow's chest.

It's a workmanlike transmogrification from a 1950s fairy tale to a brash present-day romance. Thanks to Julia Ormond's rather delicate Sabrina and Harrison Ford's amusingly deadpan performance as Linus Larrabee, the movie certainly has its moments. But this "Sabrina" never evokes the sweet allure of Billy Wilder's original film. How could it?

Truly touching moments such as a surprise meeting between Ami and his estranged brother, Oscar, show us this movie didn't need any sentimental help.

With conceptual misfires like this, Lee's best work recedes even more swiftly into the past.

This comedy, directed by Michael Caton-Jones, is as stalled as Fox's Porsche. It's too flat to be funny and too trite to be meaningful.

While Death is fun, there's something cool and removed about it, which makes it feel ultimately like an exercise in special effects. It's more clever than affecting, its narrative tactics more like entertaining detours than a mounting drama. That shortcoming is redeemed by the movie's grim relentlessness.

A charming, spirited movie for cinephiles, or those who aspire to be. It's the kind of movie every kid in film school wanted to make but didn't have the father to produce.

The story, which feels more like a sprawl of television episodes than a film, is a little tedious to sit through.

Storytelling like this weighs heavier than a standard diving suit, and it's really up to you, if you're ready to take the plunge.

Although the movie -- falls occasional prey to pretension, it's a classic guilty pleasure.

So taken with its own love of cinema, it forgets to lead you down the necessary dramaturgical path to make you fall in love, too.

That's the only way to enjoy Wolfgang Petersen's nearly three-hour epic: as a Pitt vehicle. In a role that requires larger-than-life dimensions, he's pretty terrific.

The movie's one-note broadness seems suited more to cable. And the story takes the wrong routes -- leaving Crystal's Larry nothing more than likable, and capitalizing callously on the irregular facial features of Anne Ramsey as the villainous Momma.

[An] appealing, if overcooked romantic comedy.

The movie doesn’t hit one out of the park, the way Get Shorty (another Leonard adaptation) did. But it racks up points with stolen bases and singles.

Radcliffe is good at showing vulnerability but without the skills to give it gradation. The magic doesn't work for him this time.

Compelling, if throwaway, drama.

To watch Carrey leering with joy at the prospect of making respectable people guess dirty words, and Broderick trying to avoid the whole thing, is to enjoy their best comic synergy.

In this touching story of boy toys helping boy toys, it's almost impossible to root for characters who are dead in the first place.

It's the feelings, the tears, the laughter, the stuff that makes Gene Shalit stand up and cheer. It's showboating time and if that's what you want, the "Magnolias" gangplank lies before you.

This saved-by-an-angel story is redeemed mostly by Smith's comic instincts.

It's too bad the filmmakers didn't take a breath, look at the rushes and see what a comedic gem they had. With just a few tweaks, The Merry Gentleman could have made a wickedly funny parody of the over-earnest, lyrically hard-edged indie movie. But it's too late for do-overs.

For my money, the best thing about Affair is Shandling, whose amusing quips and facial reactions steal what little of the show there is to steal. You almost wish the story would switch to him permanently.

We're talking a thriller about property ownership. This is a yuppie conceit; this is not interesting to human beings. What's the moral behind "Pacific," anyway? Always Check Your References?

This is Disney at its live-action best and brightest.

As Series 7 speeds toward its inevitable conclusion, at least the contenders make this downward spiral something to savor.

The commercial transition has been remarkably successful. This is primarily thanks to Rodriguez, who not only retains the original movie's kinetic flair, but takes it further.

For those who accept Potter's premise -- and why not embark on a challenging, enriching experience? -- this is a unique, bold adventure of the soul.

Soccer needs this movie like Georgia needed "Deliverance."

I'd give this movie about half a miracle.

An overture to the subject rather than a profound study.

An ingenious hybrid of submarine movie and ghost story. And there's a wee bit of "Macbeth" in there too.

Occasional clumsiness is easily coated over by the movie's overarching goodwill.

All the movie's treacheries, deceptions and story twists are marred by our lack of innocence. We see the big picture way before the characters do, and that pushes us right out of the movie and back into our seats -- the last place we want to be.

An overextended, episodic disappointment.

Newton may not be a great actor, either, but she's full of life and charm. She's the only thing holding this movie together at all.

In a movie whose texture is supposed to be hard-edged realism, the characterization seems a little too pat and jaunty.

Even though the story ultimately doesn't match the intensity with which it began, the movie's extraordinary for its two main performances.

It is, however, a baby boomer's treat to see Faithfull, romancer of Mick Jagger back in the day and a pop siren in her own right, show her qualities as an actor. One is hopeful she'll find her way to other, better projects.

There's nothing wrong, nor particularly right about the experience. It just sits there, like a Nike ad.

For all his patient, accumulative storytelling, Sayles yields little that doesn't feel trite or overly schematic.

It's uncompromisingly bad, single-mindedly off-target.

Kids will understand this stuff. If you can remember your younger, goofier roots, so will you. Sandlot isn't well made but it's alive with dopey, summertime spirit.

Thanks to screenwriter Alan Sharp's fast-moving scenario featuring a healthy array of rape, pillage, burning, deceit, swordfighting, treachery and murder, it's a watchable hoot.

A feel-good infusion for your precious little darling (or pack of darlings) who could use an uplifting fantasy.

Works because of its heedless, heart-on-its-sleeve spirit.

A warm, unexpectedly moving portrait of a man on the verge of what could either be a dreadful or delightful second chapter.

So single-minded in its reach for fantasy, it becomes the genre's evil opposite: banality.

Sure, it's the corniest of conceits, but "Astronaut" taps delightfully into one of our deepest cultural values: the one about the pursuit of happiness. And the movie's unpretentious lightheartedness, which echoes the old-fashioned, corn-fed lore of Frank Capra, or even "The Andy Griffith Show," makes it blissfully easy to sign on for this good-natured voyage.

Thornton, writer-director of the superb "Slingblade," has a gift for depicting down-and-dirty scenes among men. And when our three principal characters go riding from Texas to Mexico, this is the best part of the movie.

It's full of good heart, and you can't help but like its unequivocal sentimentality.

If you don't operate on the premise that soccer is the most important thing in the universe, you might not go along with everything in Fever Pitch.

There's something diverting but not wildly stirring about this Italian drama.

Ultimately, the movie's too uneven to be totally satisfying.

Although the plot is crucial, it's the interaction among characters that makes Snatch percolate. Ritchie knows when to stop and smell the comedy.

It's painstakingly paced, but it's also entrancing.

Gets more operatically farcical (most of it unintentionally so) by the minute.

Ron Howard somehow makes a great movie and an awful movie, all at the same time.

Despite its intelligent agenda, swollen heart and fabulously epic surface, amounts to a didactic banality: a white guy's politically correct lesson abroad.

Inspired by the true story of Ellis, has Hollywood formula practically stitched to its Speedo. But the characters and the actors who play them are so captivating, we're too entertained and charmed to notice.

The movie makes an over-long deal about Jody's immaturity and never seems to get beyond it.

I'm talking cheap visual gags, painfully embarrassing moments and other sophomoric humor guaranteed to get you and your friends almost vomiting with laughter.

The movie's a treasure of small gems.

In terms of sheer belly-laugh count, this one's in the same plentiful company as "There's Something About Mary" and "Road Trip."

In the end, we don't know what we're watching, an art-house superhero film or a computer-generated "King Kong." By trying to please both sensibilities, the filmmakers have pleased neither.

Never was the case for psychotropic medication more acute than in Jovovich's performance.

This movie's entire raison d'etre (that's French for "shark meat") is to toy creatively with the "rules."

Never gets as emotionally involving, or persuasive, as the moviemakers intend it to.

The movie feels forced, cliched and derivative.

Truth be told, none of it is actual living, and all of it is secondhand re-spinning of such better movies as "The Year of Living Dangerously" and "Welcome to Sarajevo." To use an antiquated newsman's cliche: Get me rewrite.

Co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose visual schemes lent a hypnotic aura to their previous collaborations -- "The Deep End" and "Suture" -- don't find the right balance of story and image this time.

Subtly riotous.

The best thing about this movie? It's short.

There's nothing to stir us, no scene to savor for life -- such as the father-son battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in "The Empire Strikes Back." Back then, we were watching a classic, still the best film in the series. This time, we're watching just another "Star Wars" flick.

Springs from that childhood fantasy of being able to stop time and wander freely among the temporarily frozen. If only writer-director Sean Ellis had done more than use the conceit for a functional romance.

There's your intrigue. There's your romance. There's your x factor, by which I mean your willingness to give two appealing stars an incredible break throughout most of the major obstacles between them and a successful robbery.

If it weren't for Sharif's extraordinary presence, there wouldn't be a cherishable moment in the movie.

Carrey lights up an otherwise over-scripted, over-frenetic potboiler.

Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity.

"Axe" is not art by any means. It's often overly taken up with resolving itself. But Myers and others create an enjoyably loose, anti-slick feeling about the affair.

For the right audience, this movie is the butt-kicking, dirt-talking, blood-spurting equivalent of beautiful music.

A good-natured but failed experiment in meeting cute -- indie-movie style.

A medium-boil good time, mostly for its humor.

Far richer than you'd ever think possible.

The Treatment gets this year's Rip van Winkle award.

James Earl Jones, James Caan and D.B. Sweeney turn in superior performances in "Gardens of Stone," but it's all for naught. Francis Coppola sabotages their efforts with a handsome but fragmentary film that can't decide which story to tell.

But when mechanical plots are a drama's main engine, we look for something else to divert us, preferably good comedy. That's in short supply, unfortunately. And it's no fun to sit through the movie's retread Woody Allenisms.

The stranger and more unusual the characters, and the less they're explained, the better.

Feels razor thin. None of the characters is particularly noteworthy. And the revelations of deep-seated conspiracy in the usual privileged, closed circles are hackneyed and tired.

If it wasn't for some exciting roundball action, Shaquille O'Neal's hulking-dunking presence and a wonderfully guttural performance from coach Nick Nolte, you'd slither off the bench asleep.

At its worst (and this is where Made of Honor comes in), it can leave you with a bad taste, not just in your mouth but in your soul.

Compared to Escape From New York, the weapons are bigger and the violence is more extensive, although it’s toned down by today’s excessive standards. There are also greater special effects this time, involving holograms and nuclear-powered submarines. But Escape From L.A. is more enjoyable in a playful way.

What starts out as a moody arthouse flick rapidly becomes an uneven B-movie yukfest (sometimes intentional, sometimes not), with low-budget concessions to the Hollywood cop-versus-killer industry.

Another sentimental mushfest disguised as a movie.

The most screamingly obvious reaction to Gerry is: what a load of pseudo-arty you-know-what.

The more the movie progresses, the more you realize how much Seinfeld's voice sounds like a droning bee -- the kind you want to swat away.

Even though it's weak in the final stages, Rock Star has more than enough sparkle to last you. That's chiefly thanks to Wahlberg, the main firework of this movie.

Williams has to break out of a second-rate "Tootsie" imitation, ankles clamped in pathos and face covered in latex. He pulls it off in the end, but it's not pretty.

It's good for a silly laugh, this stuff. And maybe this movie will draw renewed attention to Carpenter's eminently better movie.

Robb is remarkably assured; there isn't a false note in her performance.

For horror fans who appreciate a bit of craft with their second-rate experiences -- Paul Haslinger's fear-mongering score is terrific for what it's worth -- this might merit a future late-night rental.

May be one hundred percent sap, but its spirit is anything but cloying, thanks to persuasive performances, most notably from Rachel McAdams.

Rather wonderful to sit through. It's fluff with flavor. And a cell phone.

I'd rather sit in bumper-to-bumper hell on I-495 for two hours than get caught in Traffic again.

There's no question the movie's entertaining. But the blatantly schematic depictions of black and white, liberal and hawk, and other tiresome dichotomies turn A Time to Kill into the moral equivalent of a cockfight.

If it does nothing else, Music Within shows us how deeply Ron Livingston's amiable face can take us into a movie. But even likable mugs like his -- remember him in "Office Space"? -- need help from the movies around them.

What engages us is Korine's revolutionary way of telling stories. It's as though he's downloading his dreams directly onto the screen.

Its greatest asset...Flora Montgomery, a flash of blond, Irish fire who makes Trudy well worth Brendan's trouble.

Surprisingly pleasant.

This is a spirited, dirty dance between the polished inauthenticity of Hollywood romance-musicals and hip-hop's central tenet: keeping it real. It's an intriguing combination, if nothing else.

A good time for kids

A bewildering, boring assembly of rock-video-surreal nightmare sequences with more repetitive episodes than Groundhog Day.

Directed by David Slade ("Hard Candy"), the action scenes are artful and terrifying; these killers move so quickly and decisively, there seems to be no hope for humanity.

It's a glossified, cluttered parody of itself. Almodovar is no longer a burlesque auteur. He's a repeat offender.

The trouble with Goal!, which -- horror of horrors -- is the first of a trilogy, is that it's neither a persuasive story nor a satisfying display of soccer.

The finale isn't quite as chillingly nerve-wracking as one would hope. Schloendorff, who also made The Tin Drum, directs with a uniform dullness that creates little sense of suspense. In replaying the Atwood novel, he and Pinter ultimately fail to create a significant timbre of their own to make the transmogrification truly effective.

Feels more like an overblown TV special than a grand theatrical release.

Crash doesn't extend beyond its most immediate sensationalism. When the movie does attempt to find a theme, it slams into a brick wall of mumbo-jumbo.

There seem to be about a half-dozen spiraling subplots that go nowhere in particular. But it's oh so hiply done -- at least, that's the idea.