Desson Thomson

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.

Kitano the filmmaker makes sure that everything is beautiful, from the wonderful colors and passing tableaux to the intricate fighting choreography. This blind swordsman, you realize, has vision to spare.

A blithely unfunny, low-budget comedy from director Barry Levinson.

If any element takes us through the movie, it's him (Depp).

Aiming to blur the distinctions between truth and illusion, it simply blurs its own effectiveness by relying on predictable and not particularly convincing mystery-thriller formula.

One of the great movie satires. And if it isn't the funniest rock spoof ever made, it certainly shares the title with "The Rutles."

The movie loses all authority, despite wonderful work from cinematographer Peter Menzies and composer Patrick O'Hearn. In screenwriter Daniel Pyne's hands, every character becomes a disappointment. Even Dafoe loses his zest as the movie progresses.

It just doesn't work...This isn't a blend of modern and classic so much as a collision.

Don't even rent the DVD, it'll only encourage them.

A spirited remake of the French drag farce, has everything in place, from eyeliner to one-liner.

Intriguing, oddly banal and ultimately deflating.

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

(Stamp and Fonda's) polar-opposition in acting styles and temperament, their cultural differences and their pop-cultural synergy come together with almost delicious cacophony.

Amazingly stilted before accelerating into its exciting finish.

About half a notch above disaster.

The movie's still a solid "B," a workmanlike drama.

This is the kind of sophisticated and pleasurable movie you dream of seeing from France.

A warmly spirited travel diary of a movie.

Mostly, the movie is riveting, well-done fare -- the stuff of Hollywood epic adventure.

The movie, however, is Pesci's. In that courtroom, he gets on a roll and stays rolling until the end. There's no one better with that New York-New Jersey corridor accent.

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

Another sentimental mushfest disguised as a movie.

Diabolically amusing without plunging into the Mel Brooks zone, and it's smart without being pedantic. And it's genuinely scary at times.

In the end, what started off as playful becomes tedious.

Its main purpose -- and no, you are not experiencing ocular breakdown -- is spiritual.

This movie just doesn't match its predecessors.

Feels so slight and pointless.

For audiences simply looking for easy entertainment and some neat-looking robots along the way.