Gregory Weinkauf

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

A dismaying dearth of romantic chemistry -- during their brief scenes together, the two (Pitt, Roberts) actually seem afraid to touch each other -- and we end up with a Frankenstein's monster of a movie: lots of interesting pieces cobbled together with all the stitches showing.

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.

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

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

A satisfyingly eerie thriller.

Delivers a thoughtful what-if for the heart as well as the mind.

Doesn't swing, doesn't score, can't make it to first base, never even drags its sorry ass out of the dugout.

It's beautiful and obvious, a dubious combination that may nonetheless ensure its success.

Lured to the project with John Cusack as her original co-star (cruelly replaced by Matthew Broderick), Nicole Kidman phones it in.

Another disposable kidnapping thriller.

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.

An adaptation that can rightfully be called brilliant.

Offers considerable charm and an obvious desire to please.

Very sketchily based upon "The Reluctant Debutante" (minus the charm, plot, and characterization).

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."

It's inspiring and consistently exciting to the eye, mind and heart, as the plentiful formations -- global, but most of these English -- stimulate the imagination with their incredible beauty and complexity. Marvelous work all round.

Akerlund and crew use their full arsenal of lenses and editing techniques in service of leaving you spun, but it's undeniable that this movie was produced by steady hands and thoughtful minds.

A solo "Thelma and Louise" crossed with a gender-reversed "The Fugitive" with a dry twist of "Fletch."

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

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.

The lavish drama spans England, France, and Spain (shot mostly in Montreal), and Duigan elegantly paints a moving romance of errors amid torture, bloodshed, and terrible tragedy.

Heavy-handed, saccharine message somehow goes down good.

Loses significant points for its lazy story and complacent delivery.

The beasts are employed to splendid metaphorical effect, which may be lost on viewers perceiving nothing but an action romp.

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.

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

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

Amid a rather routine plot and standard cop-show stylings -- just doesn't add up to much entertainment value.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Unhampered by imagination and driven solely by libido.

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

It may be his (Greenaway's) breeziest and kindest-hearted effort to date.

Taken as a whole, the movie seems to be searching for a harmony it never really achieves.

This beast is as subtle as a Red Bull enema, but it succeeds magnificently as compulsively watchable spectacle.

A vicious, hard-core version of "Thelma and Louise," going nowhere near the Grand Canyon but leaving a trail of carnage in their wake.

Rife with silliness, such as the flashbacks within flashbacks of characters who were not with one another at the time, and occasional unintentional laughs -- but it's also a good, raucous kick in the behind, which is literally all it aspires to be

The extra-short length is puzzling -- about half an hour has been lopped off the length of the original Canadian release -- but what remains feels whole and wholly satisfying, a rare, successful merging of the obvious and the haunting.

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

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

As a whole it's vibrant, witty and richly detailed.

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.

It's Tommy's job to clean the peep booths surrounding her, and after viewing this one, you'll feel like mopping up, too.

This compression of logic--coupled with two hours of ham-fisted delivery--guarantees that Antitrust won't jangle your nerves but will intermittently split your sides with laughter.

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

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.

Grind does evince a true love for skating, and both the street action and the actual competitions are brilliantly performed and slickly lensed. That it's also funny and excels beyond Youth Culture 101 is a nice bonus.

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

This bloody stab at William Castle's 1960 gimmick flick substitutes chaos for chills.

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.

A mind of overcooked pasta and a stomach of iron may get you through it, but it really is worth considering how desperately you need cheap chuckles while executive producer Adam Sandler and his favorite charity case laugh all the way to the bank.

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."

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.

Less a spiritual quest than a very self-indulgent gimmick movie that could use a strong shot of inspiration.

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."

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

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.

Smart people will relish its temerariousness, average people will smile awkwardly and comment that it's "kinda different," and dimly lit people may mistake it for the Elmo movie and drool quietly in the back rows. It's a movie for everyone.

A shame, this frenetic mess, as there were loads of reasons to be hopeful.

Happily stuck between a rock and the deep blue sea.

With a sneer and a wink, Drowning Mona plunges us into a fresh deluge of idiotic Americana .

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

A happily self-aware body-count flick that's as brutally funny as it is plain-old brutal. A broad slash of scary, sci-fi fun, the project leapfrogs all the Scream and Last Summer junk to carve itself a new, high-tech niche.

Ultimately it's an ugly, insipid rape fantasy, nothing more.

Once the terror ends and the credits roll, we finally get to the best part: a merciful escape.

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

Such a remarkable rift between its charming source material and its heinous cinematic realization that the producers may as well have skipped the hassle of securing licensing rights and simply called this mess Mike Myers: A--hole in Fur.

Exactly as you may expect, this thing is good for a few cheap little laughs and no more.

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.

Wrenches paltry giggles and cheap warmth from a screenplay that makes "Son in Law" seem like Sam Shepard. But wretched Affleck is the real liability.

As in the comparatively quaint original film, there are whiffs of greed, carnage, social upheaval and the triumph of the numskull, but it's all rendered noxious nonsense by zooming hot rods, vague T&A, irritating jump-cuts and a bunch of dipshit Power Ranger wannabes slamming in hell's moshpit.

Mostly this happy train wreck feels like a longer, better movie that was chopped up and reassembled by retarded monkeys; what should have been a rush instead feels rushed.

Inventive and richly researched, it's worth admission just to see Der Führer bickering with Mick Fleetwood as a feisty Pablo Picasso.

As Rikki, Seda is a model of foul duplicity, and the movie itself is a relative rarity: an intelligent showcase of senseless machismo.