Jack Mathews

BI2 is packed with as much lust, nudity and sexual depravity as the first. So, why isn't it as much fun? What's lost in any sequel is the freshness of the first film, and was "BI1" ever fresh!

It is remarkably, unsentimentally dramatized by Fred Schepisi, courtesy of the pitch-perfect performances of its ensemble British cast.

Except for Hempf, every character is under incredible duress, and the performances are exceptional. With his first feature, an Oscar nominee for foreign-language film, von Donnersmarck has certainly left his mark.

Energetic, provocative.

Made for viewers old enough to appreciate a talking pooch but too young to read or write about it.

Plumbs the issue of sibling love and family responsibility in quietly powerful ways, and the performances of the two stars surpass convincing to reach a level of biographical realism.

So riddled with plot holes and implausible actions, you can't help feeling insulted by it.

Whether he'll achieve his goal of setting the world land-speed record for motorcycles is never in doubt, of course, but getting to a film's climactic scene has rarely been more fun.

Levinson is so skillful at developing personalities, even among the story's would-be villains, that by the halfway point of the movie, every gesture and expression has unexpected depth and texture. The performances are across-the-board superb.

Intimate, deeply affecting family drama.

This at-times harrowing, occasionally unfocused film is a case study of one of hundreds, if not thousands, of stories of Iraqi civilians to whom the war has hit home and left holes in families. It makes you rue the most indelicate of all combat euphemisms - "collateral damage."

Awkward, unconvincing bisexual roundelay.

The film is lovely to look at, but makes not a lick of sense.

It's a human drama, drawn in such careful emotional detail, its two acts of violence -- one shown, one not -- are almost incidental.

This will qualify as a spoiler only for those who have never seen a really bad movie before.

A mindless, cliche-riddled action-cartoon, a blur of metal and fire and screeching tires, with bad dialogue, cardboard characters and a volume set so high, it makes the Indianapolis 500 sound like chamber music.

A thing of beauty and imagination.

Chevy Chase looks tired, Pam Grier looks embarrassed, and pop star Iggy Pop gives a performance that -- if you can believe it -- is even sillier than his name.

As cool a summer lark as you'll find.

A combination homage, living obituary and darkly moody piece of cinematic poetry.

Failures on the scale of writer-director Steven Zaillian's All the King's Men are as rare as falling sequoias, and they make a noise even if no one's in the woods to hear them. This sequoia is very noisy indeed.

The movie belongs to Luke, who brings the heroic Chamusso to life as richly as Forest Whitaker does the evil Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland."

The second half, picking up 10 years after Eddie was institutionalized, is pure screwball comedy. It's as if Cassavetes had written the first half for himself to direct, and the second for Carl Reiner. [29 Aug 1997, p.F10]

Moves as slowly and deliberately as it sounds, but Seigner and Serrault are extremely effective in roles often requiring them to work alone, or together in loaded but wordless exchanges.

The film's biggest problem is its psychologically false ending. Having created a complex relationship, Anselmo seems to throw up his hands at the end and admit he doesn't have a clue about how to resolve it.

While there is a great deal of laughter among the quartet, there's scarcely a giggle in it for the audience.

A lump of coal, sculpted from the kind of high-concept idea screenwriters find scribbled on bar napkins after nights of heavy drinking.

Among the year's biggest disappointments.

The first pleasant surprise of 2003, a cross-cultural romantic comedy that doesn't stint on romance or comedy, and- - when you least expect and most need it- - throws in some jaunty musical numbers of its own.

A feast of imagery.

The dubbing from German to Polish is off-putting, but it is Schlondorff's best film since his classic "The Tin Drum."

Really, women drag their husbands and boyfriends to films like writer-director Susannah Grant's emotionally bogus Catch and Release and I feel their pain. They should get a free Boys Night Out pass every time they make the sacrifice.

Has the gentlest feel of any movie I can remember.

Not to be cruel, but the aspirations of the movie and its principals are so far beyond their reach" not to mention budget"that it arrives in theaters dependent on the kindness of strangers.

As much as I love swing, all I got out of Martin Guigui's murky, incomprehensible grade B romantic fantasy was a few twitches of nostalgia for the music.

It's a slight, old-fashioned B movie, the last thing you would expect from an actress coming off a breakout year, but it has a charm and freshness we don't see much these days.

The sweetness of Nacho's nature, along with Black's unselfconscious physical enthusiasm, turn all this into a live-action cartoon, with the ring violence having no greater consequence than a Wile E. Coyote fall from a high place.

It's 80 minutes of frantic mugging, of silly pratfalls and clown fights, of ideas lifted from other children's movies, design schemes from Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and characters from Toys R Us, all patched together without an innovative stitch of its own. [22 Nov 1996, p.F6]

It's a great performance that's a horror to watch. Of all the bleak year-end movies, Love Liza is the bleakest; of all the sad characters you've seen lately, Hoffman's Wilson Joel is the saddest. And he goes home with you.

At the half-hour mark, Godsend falls off the edge of reason, veering wildly away from what seems the promising beginning of a drama about the ethics of human cloning and instead becomes the cheesiest of hallucinatory horror movies.

Boorman signals that he may not like what the real Cahill did, but as a storyteller with a proven affection for larger-than-life subjects, he can't resist him, either.

The things you can look forward to, however, are the humor, intellectual musing, emotional tumult, superb acting and challenging adult questions.

That final night of competition is exciting stuff, capped by a heroic victory ride, but this is otherwise a plodding feature about decent young people in a rough-and-tumble sport that makes you wonder how many IQ points they have being bucked around inside their heads.

This computer-animated feature rivals "Cars" for the year's most visually exciting cartoon, but watch your step - most of the movie takes place in the London sewers, where the script may have been conceived.

Critics are already comparing the two movies and largely agreeing that Tarantino?s story about a psychopathic stuntman who targets women for highway carnage is the best. I disagree.

Turgoose, in his first film role, is entirely convincing as the strong-willed but naïve Shaun, and Graham is a genuine fright as the feral prototype of the violent skinhead culture on the horizon.

What's good about the idea is that it triggers the kind of debate we would be having over Iraq if there was a draft. What's bad about it is that the three main characters in Robert Malkani's script - anti-war lawyer George (Chris Klein), gung-ho cab driver Dixon (Jon Bernthal) and sissy novelist Aaron (Elijah Wood) - are not interesting, either as individuals or as three amigos.

Toback is a smart guy with kinky tastes who has nothing left but to tempt actors into performing in his sex fantasies.

For all its scale, grandeur, historical context and political brass, "Kingdom" is no more compelling a period drama than last year's "Alexander."

This is melodrama with broad theatrical flourishes, but Dietrich's sensuality is still a natural wonder, and with a new print, the Film Forum run offers a rare opportunity to see it big-screen-size.

I have an idea for a Mars movie. When our first astronauts step onto the Red Planet, they discover that Martians not only exist but that they've hired Johnnie Cochran to represent them in a massive defamation suit against American filmmakers.

Creates a hellishly evil portrait of a police department in which every white cop is either a racist thug or an enabler, and every black cop a disgusted observer or crusading hero.

As tension mounts through the evening, Giraldi cleverly sweeps in and out of conversations -- and brings it all together in a climax that is as hard to see coming as it is to resist.

First-time writer-director Hunter Richards? London is even worse torture than it sounds. It includes flashbacks that actually demonstrate just how miserable a jerk the main character is.

This is a pitch-black sendup of a classic femme fatale, a teenage version of the husband-killers in "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice," without the saving grace of passion.

While I understand Vergès' oft-repeated claim that he wants to use these sensational cases to point out that the French were no better than the Nazis in their treatment of colonial subjects, it's impossible to overlook his glib dismissal of his clients' crimes and the smug righteousness that rests in the smirk constantly on his face.

The characters she (Ephron) invents are not very interesting, and aside from the always reliable Travolta, the performances are uniformly aligned.

Besides repeating his premise that only fools fall in love and deserve whatever circle of hell they enter for it, he seems to really believe that morality has no place in art. Certainly, he's keeping it out of his.

For Hobbitués and adventure fans of all other ages, it's the year's best thrill ride -- maybe the best film.

You have never seen a concert film like U2 3D, and it may change your expectations for the rest of your rocking years.

I quibble over a film that has none of the artistic pretensions of "The Silence of the Lambs." This is more of a greatest-hits Hannibal movie, with a thunderingly portentous soundtrack, lots of mugging and autopsy detail, and a bang-up double ending.

By turns cheerful, funny and melancholy, and at all times honest, Nicole Holofcener's Lovely and Amazing stands out in the current run of ensemble women's films.

Mostly, though, Hayek's problem is one of physical miscasting. She's so tiny next to the tall, rotund Molina that she looks like child in their scenes together. And despite a fake caterpillar brow, she's just not believable as a woman bemoaning her disfigurements.

A tale of love, desperation and conspiratorial madness, comes off on the big screen as a wacky psychological snow job.

It may be that Gronkjaer couldn't get the nun to open up to her. But not knowing much about her creates an awkward imbalance that Vig, fascinating as he is, can't overcome.