Gregory Weinkauf

The story's a trifle, but it's consistently edgy as the team stride straight into the middle of grisly violence so they can capture it on film.

As a thriller, The Butterfly Effect is iffy and uneven, but as a portrait of a people, it's effective and intriguing.

The soul of Gladiator is made sluggish by a maddening lack of suspense.

All in all, this is every inch a TV movie.

When it's all over, one is less compelled to applaud than to give each "character" a sympathetic hug.

For three jerks bitching in a box, Tape makes the most of its minimalism. At its best, it's Betrayal for the Breakfast Club set.

Tethered to screenwriter Gail Parent's adaptation of Dyan Sheldon's novel, plus the demands of bigwig producers, it's a testament to Sugarman's artistry that she sustains her funky playfulness--a hallmark of her earlier work--throughout most of this film.

A mess, but it's a rousing mess, with ample humor and action to satisfy the discerning dullard within.

The movie features several political themes for adults and is mostly delightful for kids. Just consider yourself warned about the live-action Carly Simon video at its tail end.

The stately pacing and meandering plot often reduce this potential classic to generous eye candy.

Although the press notes liken the movie to "Easy Rider" (why not "Lawrence of Arabia" while you're at it?), the obvious comparison is to the "Fast and Furious" franchise, which shares the same producer. Actually, the closest spiritual cousin may be "Pee-wee's Big Adventure."

Like its namesake, this Simon Mágus is wise and elemental, sure to leave you pensive afterward.

Quills is bound to titillate some, but for most it's likely to summon little more than a few Oscars and appreciative yawns.

Director Mick Jackson (L.A. Story) delivers playful and charming teens-turned-30 moxie.

Hasty pacing makes for a rich and exciting movie, but not an especially spooky or spellbinding one.

Distinguishes itself by its subtlety and good taste. Even if we catch a hint of gypsy music on the soundtrack -- or glimpse a disturbing American neighbor lady -- Gardos steadfastly guards us from caricature. She wants to keep it real.

Nói makes a stab at tragic romance.

This modest project is all about atmosphere and reflection, and, as such, it is successful.

The songs are actually quite good--if also hideously embarrassing--but these comedians take their roles far too seriously, to their peril and our puzzlement.

The movie is beautiful to look at (lensed by Pierre Gill) as are the girls, but it takes its clunky message so seriously that it often verges on silliness.

Despite its formalistic failings and truly absurd Porn Moment, there's a morbidity here that feels quite genuine, and, after the movie is over, it amounts to rough-hewn poetry.

Loses significant points for its lazy story and complacent delivery.

Despite the tighter rewrite and the slicker production, it's obvious that Shimizu is still searching for what scares him, and until he finds it, he doesn't stand--ahem--a ghost of a chance of frightening us.

Beneath its satisfactory chops this movie -- like Ms. Croft herself -- is stuffy and soulless.

Heavy with mood and Finn's fine music, Jeffs' debut feature merely moistens us when we should be soaked. Maybe next time she'll let it all come down.

Essentially this is a pale imitation of "My Life as a Dog" or "Cinema Paradiso." It means well, but it's only a "feel-good" experience if your concept of that term involves being jerked around and doused in sap.

The challenge faced here by writer-director Robert Guédiguian (Charge!) is to keep his cheap melodrama from curdling his insightful societal appraisal.

Director Christopher B. Stokes (House Party 4) shapes up the fabulous dance sequences with undeniable energy, and real-life brothers Houston and Grandberry are two of the most enjoyable musicians to appear onscreen since Sting played a bellboy.

This trifle is better approached as a suburban haunted-house attraction thrown by enthusiastically confused teenagers. It's a little bit eerie, completely disjointed and sporadically amusing--kind of like "Lost in Translation," but with wanton slaughter. Do not expect more.

There's too much self-congratulatory showbiz overkill, and one is forced to wonder exactly who is getting paid, and how much, for leading this parade in his honor. Otherwise, this project makes it easy for anyone to understand the sanctified, semi-crazed star and the elements that created and destroyed him.

This elegant vision of sexual roles is certain to make a lasting impression and is likely to provoke explosive dialogues in Denny's and sidewalk cafés from here to Monaco.

Ambitious in scope and humble in execution.

As detached and unfocused as a college pothead. And about as much fun.

Although Morrison's drama feels increasingly forced and manipulative as the movie rolls along, the movie is competent if painfully predictable.

Heartbreakers' implausible level of comedy just grows tedious, as it's neither smartly witty nor full-throttle absurd.

While this production from Michael Douglas is being touted as a sexy romantic comedy, it's more precise to think of it as big loud fun for when you're feelin' dumb.

I Am David is by far the best after-school special to hit the big screen this season.

It's a likable enough smorgasbord, from its trendy Irish locations to Andy Summers turning in a Beatles cover to occasional giggles and gasps.

Here's a popcorn movie with soul, welcoming the masses to consider how much can change in popular culture over 30 years, as the horrific becomes the familiar.

The creators of Alexander set out to make an epic, and they can't be faulted for the many elements that succeed on this scale; what's unfortunate is that they don't quite deliver a camp classic.

Ultimately, it's the hip cast that keeps things hopping.

What's in it for you? Mostly a bunch of astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station, floating around filming each other.

Too bad it commits the crime of being so intensely average, because what could have been sensational turns out to be merely this week's heist movie.

While it's marvelously refreshing to observe Mother Nature obliterating L.A. and New York along with caricatures of ghastly world leaders, almost everything good is in the trailer, save perhaps brief run-ins with malevolent wolves and Ian Holm.

A loud and ghastly movie to sit through and not short on gratuitous hideousness, but Darabont has also done his best to baste it with humanity and sweetness.

Visually it's wild fun, since fledgling feature director Len Wiseman started off in production design, and creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos's diverse credits span from "Godzilla" to "Stuart Little." Yet with Underworld's guilty pleasures come copious clinkers, from its nuts-and-bolts narrative foundation to Wiseman's inability to direct actors beyond cartoonish interaction.

A sharp and pungent distillation of the book. However, as far as the theme of childhood under duress goes, I found "My Life as a Dog" or the stridently Irish "Into the West" to be significantly more fulfilling.

Equilibrium improves as it rolls along -- either that or, ironically, it wears down the senses until the viewer succumbs.

Offers considerable charm and an obvious desire to please.

This Trinity may be the least of the three--sound familiar, Matrix faithful?--but it's the closest in style and attitude to a pulpy comic book, an art form that doesn't need to be lofty, perfect or even sensible to tickle a dork's fancy.

There's a somber tone to Petroni's work here--enhanced by Roger Lanser's shadowy cinematography and handicapped a bit by a schmaltzy Hollywood-type score--and there's also plenty of episodic life stuff.

While the movie is indeed touching and very politically significant, there's something peculiar about never learning exactly what made ace reporter Guerin so intensely obsessive about this topic.

Standing on its own, it's comme ci, comme ça, self-serious when it should be adventurous, coy when it should be revelatory. One must afford it props, though, for its proud celebration of insanity. Now that is truly creepy.

For better or worse the movie is simply simple -- the project's quality and significance depend upon one's perspective: Is this a daring and impressive homespun yarn or just a very middling stab at soft-core?

The game is cool to watch, and the love story is assertive enough to hook even the stodgiest ESPN man.

A bucket of crap, but at well under 90 minutes it's a small bucket, and half the crap is amusing.

Not scary enough for its own good, Beck's Ghost Ship ends up stuck, enjoyably enough, between the Scylla of schlock and the Charybdis of camp.

If you love the excitement of watching golf, this Damon-Smith bore is right up your fairway.

Sometimes the 2D and 3D animation doesn't blend, and the heinous pop songs would embarrass Peter Cetera, but there's plenty to like, including a fascinating mechanical contraption and musical score both shamelessly and lovingly stolen from "The Dark Crystal."

Audiences are advised to sit near the back and squint to avoid noticing some truly egregious lip-non-synching, but otherwise the production is suitably elegant, a fine retreat from summer cinema overkill.

Although DeSalvo performs the miracle of making these characters seem like people we actually know, occasionally her delivery definitely makes us wish we didn't.

Moves in fits and starts, with some crafty and credible fight choreography by Xin Xin Xiong on either side of the pretty but boring middle hour.

Coppola hasn't delivered a turkey--it's a cute little movie, if not as rich as her brother Roman's similarly themed "CQ"--but when work this potentially satisfying remains flatly obvious, it's almost worse than being flat-out bad.

Of all the A-list men playing dedicated authority figures, Star Wars alums Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson remain among the most amusing and pleasing, which is why K-19: The Widowmaker glides along engagingly rather than sinking.

Solondz's singular game plan is to dangle profoundly obnoxious caricatures before us, then punish them mercilessly for their stupidity, which is amusing enough if you're in the mood for that sort of thing.

The result is his (Shyamalan's) most meditative and lovingly rendered offering thus far, if also his least fun.

Much like a cat, the movie is a superfluous gob of fluff with an attitude ranging from idiotic to nasty.

Resnick has crafted an ambitious, if extremely uneven, character study.

Visit Red Planet, and you'll boldly go where everyone has gone before.

A satisfyingly eerie thriller.

Austere little creep-out.

Authenticity and plausibility get gunned down from the get-go, but if explosive shaky-cam ultraviolence and frequent extreme close-ups of greasy whiskers are your bag, this hyperactive wannabe may count as something of a score.

Sayles is rarely a bore, but occasionally he frustrates more than he delights, enlightens or challenges. Such is the case with Casa de los Babys.

If you want to drift through emotional turmoil and a harrowing loss of security both personal and national, this project may provide some soggy satisfaction.

If this movie is a pedestal, it is far too tall and wide for a performer of Kaufman's stature.

A tight, rockin' popcorn flick packed with nasty kicks, the year's first major sequel is a rare beast, matching and in some ways superseding the original movie.

You'll get that $8 nap you've been craving.

Neither sensuously sizzling nor daftly off-beat, Better Than Sex occasionally rises to its own modest occasion by gently reversing our expectations.

Merhige is too talented to be dismissed as a wannabe, but here his gifts for clever angles and oogy feelings are tethered to blasé genre redundancies and clunky storytelling. Looks great, less thrilling. I blame the screenwriters.

Competent if unremarkable tragedy.

There's a modicum of charm to Timeline, since its eager, earnest tone harks back to Donner's work from the '80s, particularly "The Goonies" and "Ladyhawke."

It's a feel-good movie that happens to have a lot of feel-bad in it. The gratuitous violence sucks, and the pat conclusion prompts one to shout don't believe the hope!.

Sadly, though, the movie as a whole feels blatantly dedicated to fleecin' da kidz.

Don't expect to be wowed by a vast spectrum of delicacies, as the buffet here is composed of entirely obvious ingredients.

An affecting film, but it just may not be everyone's cup of cyanide.

Doesn't even play fairly by its own rules. What emerges isn't a romantic comedy at all, but rather--very much like "The War of the Roses" a few years back--a cleverly disguised monster movie.

Since the movie arrives and succeeds as entertaining B-movie fare, we may as well appreciate all of its howls, beastly or unintentional.

The theme (social breakdown in isolation) is strong, but the plot meanders, and the motivations are decidedly hazy, so its popularity probably stems from its seamless blending of naive wonder and soul-mining horror.

It's the usual struggle of growing up and growing old, but Muccino's twists are plucky and revealing when he's not suffocating us with heavy-handed mortality and pathos.

what we've got here is a little propaganda film. A mild one, certainly, but the cliché of DIY hopefuls (band) versus the Big Machine (music industry) foments the same tedious struggle of art versus commerce.

The result is visually slick, almost shockingly simpleminded, kinda redundant and only adequately satisfying. Alas, for their dramatic wrap-up the Wachowskis' storytelling now feels less intriguing than merely dutiful.

Once Connell finds his feet, he just may stride forth with his Important American Movie. Until then, The Opportunists is simply a whiff of great unwashedness yet to come.

Thing is, movie's 100 percent mystery-free, but mildly creative, mixing Psych 101 with cynical Hollywood in-jokes with Tylenol-sponsored grainy-cam footage. Best revelation is source of Myers' superhuman strength: eats big rats, apparently.

Knockout's heart is in the right place, but it drags because of tedious earnestness and shallow "You go, girl!" feminism.

This movie's just so-so, but at its heart lies a true leading lady.

What's somewhat ironic about Bread and Roses is that it's bound to be more interesting to people outside of L.A. than in it.

If only the sum of this thunderously self-important "true story" outweighed its often fabulous parts, but it resorts to throwing up hollow icons in that most ignoble of losses, the expensive mediocrity.

Hypochondriacs and germ freaks may dig it.