Gregory Weinkauf

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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.