Jack Mathews

LaBeouf ("Holes") has a scrubbed, ego-free innocence that is perfect for his working-class hero.

Dark, grim, and cliched Orwellian satire.

It's an antidote to complacency. The question is, whom is it trying to wake up?

Has sentimental goo oozing from its opening frame, and the gunk gets so thick so fast, it's a wonder the projector doesn't freeze before the molasses-strapped finale.

Schrader's main interest is not in the mystery, per se, but in the political intrigue of incestuous Washington, where conflicts of interest are the norm and morality is indeed relative. The points are well-taken, but Harrelson's performance often gets in their way.

It's a sensation - both a milestone in computer-animation and a likely Christmas classic.

"Love" would be intolerably boring were it not for the frequent injections of humor, thanks largely to Hector Elizondo as Florentino's uncle, and for Bardem's ultimately winning performance.

Ultimately about the indomitability of faith, and the Christian symbolism is laid on thick. But the story, adapted from a famous behind-the-Iron-Curtain novel, sheds light on a subject few people have known about.

This is ensemble work at its best.

It's just twice as much as we need to know about the Sex Pistols.

The cruelty of the law has been better demonstrated with news stories, and unless you're a Californian with two strikes against you, I don't know why you'd want to do this movie to yourself.

It captures the animal attraction we call lust and carefully tracks its evolution to true love. For all its faults, this beautifully shot, sexually graphic film is a gem.

It takes a while for Frank Oz's ensemble black comedy Death at a Funeral to hit its deliriously nutty stride. But when it does, the laughs don't stop until the movie, like the subject of its family get-together, has taken its last breath.

Jake Gyllenhaal is 21 and looks as though he's going on 16. This is not a problem for films like "Lovely & Amazing" and "The Good Girl"-- It is a problem in Moonlight Mile, where he plays a grown man recovering from the murder of his fiancée.

Director Marcus Nispel, a rock video vet making his feature debut, knows how to ratchet up the tension. His remake is a far, far better-looking thing than the original. There's also more humor, especially in the over-the-top performance of drill sergeant-turned-actor R. Lee Ermey as the loudest of the inbreds.

Eisner is not remotely up to the challenge. Spending millions on action scenes does not mean you get them right.

Its sprawling canvas is mere backdrop for the most intimate of character studies -- a portrait of a man who chose material wealth and found emotional ruin.

Chamber is chockablock with action (including a far more exciting game of Quidditch) and crafty special effects.

Heartbreakers is too long by a half-hour, and there are entire sketches (including a horrid nightclub sequence with Weaver trying to sing in Russian) that could be mercifully sacrificed.

A gritty thriller on the theme of the con man conned. It works as well as it does thanks to a captivating lead performance by Emmanuelle Devos and the superb direction of Jacques Audiard.

Ultimately, Murder by Numbers has been reduced to a tease, giving us a hint -- mostly through the fine performances of Gosling, who creates a charismatic sociopath, and Pitt, who's character seems genuinely troubled -- of the kind of relevant social drama it might have been.

There are some effective group scenes with Darius and Nina and their friends, but Witcher's dialogue and direction more often show the craft than the naturalism he's after. [14 Mar 1997, p.F1]

As pulp entertainment, Confidence is great fun and Foley's first good movie since the very different "Glengarry Glen Ross."

Beautifully shot, both in darkened homes and on the misty green Irish landscape by Loach's frequent cinematographer Barry Aykroyd, "Wind" has a you-are-there intensity and intimacy about it that make it nearly overwhelming. But for all its violence and subsequent sadness, it's a movie of extraordinary importance.

Everything about this political thriller is ridiculous.

If you're at all curious about what it feels like to be inside a race car going 200 miles per hour at Daytona International Speedway, I don't think there's a better, quicker or safer way to find out than Simon Wincer's documentary.

The romantic subtext of their characters' relationship is the film's chief liability, and feels forced and undeveloped.

It neither mocks nor satirizes, it doesn't touch any social issues, and though it is about an election, there are no losers. For all those reasons, there aren't many laughs, either. Political comedy plays against tension, and there just isn't any.

That (cinéma-vérité) feel is absolutely convincing, as are the performances.

Though the sitcom humor of this is much broader and funnier than in May's film, it is also the part most faithful in spirit to the original.

Save your breath, and your money.

But there were few, if any, better performances in 2000 than the one Blanchett gives here, and Raimi's crafty blend of dramatic realism and supernatural knowledge is one of the year's best directing con jobs.

What Walk the Line does well, it does really well. Mangold was ­wisely gen­erous with the amount of musical performance he included in the film, and the later scenes - showing Cash and Carter as partners - are so well shot and edited, they defy you to sit still.

Whether we've reached the critical mass of "misplaced power" is the gist of the current national debate, and Why We Fight is a useful tool in that argument.

The question is not whether the movie exactly duplicates the experience of the book, but whether the movie stands on its own. Angela's Ashes clearly does.

Stole so many details from the earlier film, "The Hustler," that you have to think of it as either a bad parody or an unfortunate homage.

Compston, with Loach's uncanny guidance, gives a performance of such natural power you'd think you were watching a drama-class prodigy like James Dean rather than a moonlighting high-schooler.

The question is, how did the producers get the amiable, talented Jason Lee to Boogie Board down the toilet with (Green)?

Nothing fails like bad horror. But it's not despicable. It is merely boring.

Its premise had me worn out by the second reel.

It's corny, plodding, implausible and - on occasion - seriously creepy. At the same time, it contains a couple of this movie year's most sublime sequences, and features one of Nicole Kidman's bravest and best performances.

Notre Musique is a cry against war and man's inherent needs for tribalism and violence, a position that wouldn't start a good argument in a college cafeteria.

Garlin, like Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine in "Marty," is good company, even when his out-of-control eating and self-loathing threaten to overwhelm him.

But Burton and August have added ­anger to the mix, and it sours much of the otherwise wondrous tone.

Redford has rarely done this kind of intimate drama, effectively a two-character play on the mountain, and he's very convincing. As is Dafoe.

Almost corny enough to be hip.

A shell of a romantic fantasy festooned with characters inspired by and resembling those in the bar scene in "Star Wars," the waiting room in "Beetlejuice" and the circus in "A Bug's Life."

We wish other directors would keep Edward Burns busy acting so he wouldn't have time to make his own movies. This is his fourth since "The Brothers McMullen" and they get more tedious each time out.

This quiet yet jolting meditation on love, obsession, loneliness, friendship and fate has the quality to entrance you through a first viewing, and compel you to take its themes and characters home with you for further consideration.

It's an old maxim that you can't make a good movie from a bad script. But with the suspense thriller Twisted, Philip Kaufman shows that you can make one that looks like it should be good.

Really bad movies can be fun, and the dialogue here often attains a level of joyful inanity.

One of the curmudgeonly director's sweetest films, and features one of Richard Gere's most affecting performances.

Enjoy Christmas in Paris, if you don't have enough problems of your own, with this slice of family life from French director Daniele Thompson.

Rent the original. It tells exactly the same story, with a better cast and with special effects that are as good or better.

The whole system was sadistic and indefensible, and the church, looking the other way as long as profits rolled in from the laundries, deserves the scorn that Mullan and his fine cast heap on it.

Mildly entertaining trifle.

There is no doubting Jonathan Demme's admiration for our 39th President: It's apparent from the opening scenes.

A well-conceived story that is very hard to shake.

The low-tech film looks like a kid's crude drawing, plays like entry-level Game Boy, and is about as nourishing as a Tootsie Pop.

Less a movie than an 80-minute promo for a self-help program for the seriously desperate.

Scanner is mostly all talk, and the talk is entertaining only when it's coming from Downey. The actor's long history of drug abuse taught him a thing or two about cooked behavior, and he gives some anxious run-on monologues that are very funny.

You know a comedy's in trouble when the only laughter the audience can hear is coming from the speakers. There are other problems with "Man," notably its abrupt shifts from farce to romantic comedy to suspense thriller, and the near absence of a political edge.

Not enough to overcome the proven axiom that although you can make a bad movie from a good script, you can't make a good one from a bad one.

The real trouble is at its core, with an over-the-top performance from Sedgwick that borders on Baby Jane campiness.

At times, Chicago has the feel of a revue, with the major characters taking turns at their own show-stopping numbers. If it's too much of a good thing, I say, bring it on.

While not nearly as elaborate as either film, Heist plays like a combination of "The Sting" and "Mission: Impossible."

Laced with flashbacks and stylistic tics, but it never loses its forward momentum, and to the last shot, it avoids predictability.

The documentary fascinates not only because of its subject matter but because the three people - whose backgrounds are individually developed - are so likable.

Though a stickler might ask what's at stake in a fight to the death between two guys who are already dead, the hard-core fans aren't likely to be disappointed.

A screamingly bad melodrama whose message seems to be that people who think they're talking to a deaf person admit things they wouldn't admit to themselves. Silence, please.

Spellbinding.

As darkness falls over the movie landscape comes the year's darkest and best movie of them all - Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams.

The failure of a movie that is so good in so many ways leaves me to wonder if Spielberg is up to this kind of complex, multi-tasking story.

An ambitious film that sticks with you long after you have left the theater -- because of both what it achieves and what it does not.

There are funny bits strewn throughout Game 6, and it's good to see Keaton in a meaty, nonshowy role for a change. He has the chops when he's not mugging.

One of the most inventive, funny and ultimately tragic coming-of-age movies in years.

Miami Vice is the last of the predicted summer blockbusters, and it delivers a reasonable amount of popcorn excitement. But if nostalgia for the TV show is the source of your interest, expect some disappointment.

Director Emmanuelle Bercot's film offers a fascinating account of how a vulnerable star might mistake fan worship for something real.

Doesn't so much crackle as pop. It has enough double entendres to fill a D-cup, but it has a premise that would have burned a hole in the screen in 1962, when its story is set.

An audacious, snappy visual and emotional feast of dishes both familiar and fresh. It's the first really good movie of 2001.

Earnest but practically unwatchable movie. I haven't spent an hour and a half with worse company since high school detention.

If Mussolini had a Monica Bellucci to inspire his troops, we might still be trying to take Palermo.

There is just no tension built prior to the murders.

The movie - with some gamy sexual references, a one-night stand and a long look at a stud muffin's naked buns - targets an older female audience. They may see it as unbearably cute, filled with ridiculous coincidences and laced with performances that - like the obnoxious soundtrack music - overstate the mood.

Though it happens two-thirds into the movie, when Lili is abandoned by the others in Greece without either luggage or money, Le Besco's vulnerability draws us into her predicament.

A guy flick, but I can't imagine many male viewers actually identifying with Elliot or his friends. The depression would be unbearable.

A shrill, amateurish two-character play that demeans women and leaves men with the quaint notion that the best way to a woman's heart is through enslavement.

Offering often-hysterical testimony to Vilanch's talent.

Nightwatch is a seriously overcast B-movie with rote performances from everyone but Brolin, who gives James an edge of danger that says that if he isn't a killer, he will be.

Hawke, who is very good as the young man's estranged father, had best stick to what he does best.

Heights is stage-bound throughout, and the secrets it would like to keep are very predictable. But its heart is in the right place, and the performances are first-rate.

The subtitle of this interview/documentary about the late, great French photojournalist should be "For Collectors Only." There is no theme, no point, no history, no illuminating insights - it's just Bresson talking about his individual photos and early sketches.

The setting and circumstances of the war overwhelm the personal story and diminish the dilemma of the title character's love life.

This is an entertaining Western with some earnest ideas about forgiveness, redemption and the loss of innocents.

This is clearly the Worst Performance by an Actress in a Death Scene since Sofia Coppola took a bullet for her dad in "The Godfather: Part III."

Offers traditional cinematic gab about marital status, sexual orientation, nationality and degree of fulfillment.

Their (Murphy/Wilson) exchanges and interplay are so campy and over the top that I kept expecting them to pull out frying pans and start bopping each other over the head with them. I Spy is one just Stooge short of homage.

If Intolerable Cruelty isn't a convincing love story, it's a hugely entertaining one, with comic relief -- in the form of Cedric the Entertainer as a voyeuristic private eye and Tom Aldredge as a decaying law-firm boss issuing directives while hooked up to life-support -- piled on top of the comedy.

Though its PG-13 rating allows for much cruder sex humor, the movie version of "Dukes" is nearly identical to the TV series in its corniness, in its incessant car chases and in its ogling of the posterior of cousin Daisy Duke.

Gets too caught up in its escalating violence and strained-to-bursting moral subtexts. It's the blood of souls drenching the screen, and it's a hideous sight to behold.

What separates Diggers from its kin - notably the Ed Burns movies - is the testosterone balance of its masculine script and Dieckmann's sensitive direction. Maybe we need more buddy movies by women.

My rule of thumb for manipulative movies: I don't mind playing the marionette as long as the strings aren't visible.

A predictable outcome is not bad if it's fun getting to it. But this story is so lamely conceived and presented that it's a grind.

For those who go along with it, it's a crafty piece of work nonetheless, ending with a pair of marvelous twists. [16 Jan 1998, p.F1]

The lone gem of the anthology takes place in the loft of a trendy L.A. restaurant where a snooty Steve Coogan learns from starstruck Alfred Molina that the actors are cousins...This is the longest of the shorts, and has a payoff ending that nearly makes the whole thing worthwhile.

As an answer to the spreading cultural virus of evangelical conformity, Brian Dannelly's teen farce Saved! is about three teeth short of a full bite. But it leaves an indelible impression.

The movie still isn't great, but it's an important remonstration to that oldest of all studio-system curses: the producer who thinks he's more creative than the director.

A postseason basketball comedy that shoots and misses at a rate that would embarrass even the Los Angeles Clippers.

It was against all odds that Michael Mann ("The Insider") would make a boring movie focusing on the most eventful decade in the life of the most dynamic athlete in history. But that's what he has achieved with Ali.

Sometimes, movies would work better if you couldn't see them.

Where good satire is drawn with a surgeon's scalpel, this comedy is done with a brush broad enough to paint - or, at least, hit - the side of a barn. But in the softer realm of parody, it has a good premise, a couple of funny performances and enough giggles for a reasonably good time at the movies.

This is Guest's fourth ensemble parody of showbiz subjects, and though his sketch-comedy style and acting troupe are now familiar, this is his most accomplished movie.

I like the idea of a cybercrimes agent cracking cases through superior knowledge of the Internet. Marsh could be a great heroine for a continuing series. But Untraceable essentially forces its audience to identify with those who would be willing accomplices to torture and murder. To understate the point, that's not an audience-friendly approach.

The effects in "T3" are spectacular, and the action sequences -- particularly the fights between the good and bad terminators -- are exhilarating.

There are some clunky, juvenile jokes and an excess of shots to that special place on men that make us double over and weep. But there are some very funny, very hip jokes as well.

A deadly script.

Slither is neither repetitive nor reverent. It is a dark and hilarious spoof of those movies, one in which both the characters and the audience seem to be in on the jokes.

The result is a long night of confrontations that feel heavily rehearsed and unlikely. There are some good moments, but I didn't believe any of this.

A speculative re-enactment of the 1999 Columbine slaughter, told from the point of view of two suburban high school nihilists as they videotape themselves preparing for the last and "best day" of their lives.

It takes nearly an hour before Stephen J. Anderson's 3-D, animated comedy Meet the Robinsons begins to make sense, and when it does, the film literally takes off. But unless you're familiar with the children's book by William Joyce from which it's adapted, that first hour is a cluttered, noisy, nearly unendurable mess.

I'd never seen anything like it, and can say that I hope to never see anything like it again.

A harmlessly cheery confection.

"Ghost World" director Terry Zwigoff, working with a depraved script by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, has fashioned the sickest -- and funniest -- black comedy in years.

A couple of the stories don't quite accomplish what Rodrigo intends, but most are poignant, disturbing, and superbly acted.

Ultraviolet, unscreened for critics, is unfit for consumption.

Meticulously researched documentary.

The film's standout performance belongs to Ed Harris, who plays a Boston detective with decades of experience and an equal amount of built-up resentment toward people who would harm children.

Hellboy may be a big, noisy goof of a comic-book action film, but love is in the dank, dark, subterranean air as the bulky red-hued palooka tries to win the heart of the pyrokinetic beauty Liz Sherman.

Fuqua's passion for the music comes through in the clear, unobtrusive style of the film, which mixes generous footage of the event's performances with interviews and archival footage, all adding up to a luscious historical snapshot of one America's original art forms.

Ill-timed "Hands" has a very limited grasp of comedy.

Whether it's any good depends on your expectations.

The studio's fresh corps of CG animators may get up to speed before the current four-picture cycle is completed, but if they don't get better material to work with, the sky will be falling along Dopey Drive.

Desperate for a slice of Spanish soap opera? You might try this misguided romantic melodrama.

Some terrific characters and some of the year's punchiest comic dialogue.

Like Ceylan's earlier films, Climates is as gorgeous as it is self-consciously composed, but an hour and 40 minutes is a long time to spend with Isa, forget three seasons.

A potent drama.

It turned out that he (Duffy) had an ego like a giant ChiaPet. With a little money sprinkled over it, it grew out of control.

One of the more uplifting films of the season.

Meryl Streep narrates this global update on child-labor abuses with all the enthusiasm and alarm of someone reading "The Pet Goat" to a classroom of second-graders.

Sillier than it is clever, and Toback's self-indulgence is tiresome. He's a genuine auteur, all right, but his life and the funky tastes that inspire him are just not as interesting as he thinks they are.

At the stunning conclusion, you feel as if the weight of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come down on your head.

Despite the movie's dramatic weaknesses, I was spellbound by the images.

Without a persuasive ending, Zodiac is an exercise in frustration if not futility. But before it hits the inevitable wall, it does something better than most genre films even attempt: it perfectly depicts the obsession that often overtakes cops and reporters involved in high-profile crimes.

This is the kind of misfire that can take everyone down with it. It's not just bad, it's mean-bad.

There's no story to speak of - three cohabiting bachelors are dragged into adulthood by the simultaneous pregnancies of their girlfriends - but Anderson, Imperioli and Eddie Griffin are amiable company and there's an earned laugh here and there.

One of the darkest, ugliest, most uninvolving and incomprehensible major-studio fantasies I've ever seen.

The Czech Republic and Russia, the respective homes of Emil and Oleg, should sue.

Delpy wrote the dialogue that gives the film its forward thrust, and "2 Days" is a wonderful first feature.

Gently hilarious comedy.

The whole movie is something of a joke, a feature-length prank that mixes stark violence and shock humor in the mold of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." Though it is a far less ambitious entertainment than Tarantino's masterpiece, it has its moments.

A stinker of epic proportions.

When you realize The Cooler is not a comedy but a dark and violent love story, it's hard to reconcile its premise with its mood. The saving graces are the performances of William H. Macy as Bernie and Maria Bello.

These are people who are just waking up to life again. It may appear to be the ultimate non-action ­movie, but in the context of these lives, it is the highest kind of ­drama.

But the film has a poetic pulse, its ups and downs accompanied by some smartly chosen pop songs, a seductive original score and McKidd's husky voice-over narration.

"Comedy is hard," said Steve Martin. For the writers of Date Movie, it's apparently impossible.

The movie, shot digitally, begins as a not very compelling or particularly convincing road movie, and turns into a riveting prison drama.

Though there are no Montys, full or otherwise, the finale will lift you up.

As a movie on its own, it's simple monotony. Olyphant, affecting Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry voice, is about as menacing as Mr. Clean, and the action scenes - whether the weapons are fists, feet, swords or guns - fly past without any tension or suspense. Hitman is a miss.

The three young actors are good, but the movie is held together from beginning to end by another riveting performance from Washington. Few actors can dominate a film with their diction as well as Washington, and the role of the erudite, passionate Mel Tolson gives him plenty of opportunity.

After dazzling us with its undersea discoveries, "Aliens" turns downright silly at the end, with a fantasy sequence set in a presumed ocean on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

As urban gangster drama, Once in the Life is way below mundane, and Fishburne's direction exceeds the rookie jitters.

Derivative to the point of distraction.

The new cast is no match for the star-clustered original, but Lucas, who looks much like a young Paul Newman (you may think you're watching "The Towering Inferno"), has a strong, matinee-idol presence, and Russell is a reliable old hand at this sort of thing.

Theirs is an affair not worth remembering.

A personal documentary on a family member. The question is, who -- outside of friends and family -- would want to watch it? The answer...is ... beyond me.

Barry, with a raspy Southern accent, gives a chilling portrait of a man who is absolutely sure he killed JFK. Whether he's a psychopath or a schizophrenic is not satisfactorily answered, but it's a fascinating question nonetheless.

A veteran who was in the Allied force trying to drive Germans out of a landmark Italian monastery asks, "What is more important, a great piece of art or a human life?" That it has taken more than 60 years to get this incredible story told answers the question.

Even without nudity, the sex scene between Meg and Auster is one of the most uncomfortable on film. Not just because of the actors' age difference (Strathairn is 54, Bruckner 17), but because of Meg's inexperience and misplaced trust.

Jovovich needed a steadying hand to keep her from flying out of her socks, and Pritikin, on his maiden solo as a director, couldn't or didn't have the heart to provide it.

Clumsily merges fiction and reality, biography and musical fantasy, and breaks the fourth wall in a way that allows Spacey to lamely address his own miscasting.

I love this series; it's possibly the most exciting use of the documentary medium ever.

You may have to go back to 1973's "Paper Moon" and the father/daughter work of Ryan O'Neal and 10-year-old Tatum for equal excellence in nepotism.

The ethical issues driving Michael Hoffman's The Emperor's Club almost outweigh the improbable arc of its story, and Kevin Kline's endearing performance as a prep school classics teacher is almost worth the price of admission.

The performances are all solid, but Sheen, last seen as Tony Blair in "The Queen," is so good in his incredibly demanding role that he makes the natural discomfort people feel at seeing someone so debilitated disappear completely.

Though there are giggles here and there, the film is inexcusably unfunny.

What follows is an extreme case of reverse courtship, which begins at conception and works backward toward getting to know each other, and then moves forward to one of the funniest birthing scenes ever filmed.

If the structure is a tad out of whack, "No Country" does not lack for action or suspense. Some of the scenes of Chigurh's stalking of Moss are nearly unbearably tense. Bring your worry beads.

Muppets From Space has its share of whimsical lines aimed over children's heads at their parents, but speaking for one parent whose kids are grown, it's not enough. [14 July 1999, p.36]

Personally, I'd rather have my brain invaded by flesh-eating beetles than listen to 10 seconds of the Sex Pistols -- Truth is, I've rarely had a worse time watching a good movie.

It's got a hot premise, some cool sets, attractive stars and action that lets up only when it thinks you're about to surrender.

It's sort of like getting off the plane in a strange place without a guide. We can figure it out, but it takes some work, and the music is more of a distraction than an aid.

Though Civic Duty seems to be a study in paranoid psychosis, it has just enough ambiguity to make you wonder if it isn't something else. You'll still be wondering when it's all over.

The film lacks a certain coherence, and Levi - one of Italy's most important postwar writers - is mostly relegated to an excuse for a sociopolitical travelogue.

Apparently, the show’s appeal is due to the good-heartedness of its undereducated anti-heroes, but their kind of dumb grows old fast.

The banter between these unlikely partners seems inspired by Quentin Tarantino's ingeniously insipid dialogue, delivered with indelible deadpan sincerity by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction." Neither the dialogue nor the characters are as interesting here.

Though Jessica Sanders' rambling documentary about the damaged lives of wrongfully imprisoned men would have made a better subject for an hour-long "Dateline" special, it's still a powerful indictment of a judicial system too anxious to close cases, and then close ranks when someone tries to reopen them.

Wretch of a B movie.

Don't miss The Fast Runner. If you do, you will deprive yourself of not only one of the most intriguing feature-film projects in decades and enough plain-spoken anthropology for three credits at Harvard, but one of the most flat-out entertaining movies of the year.

Some viewers will call the whole business pornography, though it doesn't really qualify. The sex is blunt and enthusiastic, but arousing it ain't. In fact, when Shortbus arrives on DVD, viewers may be fast-forwarding through the sex to get to the acting.

Too often crosses the line between good melodrama and rank cliché.

Cuarón relies on his ample visual style, and he has indeed created a film you cannot tear your eyes away from.

In the end, Weaver provides a moving and sensitive portrait of one person out of an estimated 400,000 in America with this mental disorder we are just beginning to understand.

The movie never really comes alive, and Crialese's coyness with Lucy's character is more frustrating than mysterious.

Brody does have a mesmerizing presence and is the only reason to see a film that likely would have gone straight to video if he hadn't won that Oscar for "The Pianist."

The final image of the snow-covered landfill, having consumed the debris, provides a kind of closure for Sauret. But for the firemen, the nightmare continues.

That Williams occasionally comes close to the author's layered spirit is a tribute to his passion. But the film fails on a number of levels. First, it is what it is: the prologue to a story that covers four(!) decades.

Has a lot of nerve making fun of Olivia Newton-John's "I Honestly Love You," as the choice of newlyweds fated for divorce in 12 to 14 months. The Wedding Planner should have such a shelf life.

It's not all bad. There is a funny early sequence where Prince Charming is being jeered for his lousy cabaret act in a village pub and a hilarious death-lily scene with the bullfrog King Harold (John Cleese) trying to squeak out the name of his heir while snapping up one last fly.

The latest in a numbing series begun in 1978 by John Carpenter, and repeated five times since, with only a few plot and casting changes to detract from the brilliant slice-and-dice work of its masked hero. Mike may be getting older, but he can still sling a knife around like a chef at Benihana. [2 Oct 1995, p.F8]

The Village is Shyamalan's weakest story, and its ending - whether or not you're surprised by it - is a genuine clinker.

Farrell plays all this as if he means it, but he seems slight in the role and without great physical presence. In a scene in which Alexander is roaring at his troops to rouse them to battle, he sounds like Mighty Mouse pretending to be Superman.

Zwart never gets the tone right in this very American comedy.

Paints itself into a corner from which it cannot escape. By the end, the movie is still in that corner, tossing out overlapping notes of hope and gloom and counting on viewers to write the ending they want. I'd leave the movie in the corner.

Shines an admiring light on some lawyers who endure low pay, terrible win-loss records and the occasional scorn of family, friends and the media for "defending the bad guys."

Among the funniest and most satisfying films I've seen in years.

There's something deeper at play in the film, something psychologically foul, voyeuristic and personal.

A fascinating movie that, if you are able to make the leap it asks of you at about the three-quarter mark, will give you something to think and talk about for days. One thing is certain: It isn't predictable.

The stories are sharply written and well composed. Some are high tech on a low-tech budget, but where they find their strength -- in the emotions of their characters -- money is no object.

What you get out of Batman Begins depends on what you bring to it. It is the most faithful to the origins of the comic strip and it sets up a series very different from the four made by Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher between 1989 and 1997.

It's impossible to overstate the silliness of all this, but it would still be a decent Halloween trick - if it were Halloween.

Passes like an evening spent with friends.

Sadly, a film about betrayal is ultimately betrayed by the film maker's own lack of conviction.

Dahl found the right actors for every part - Bill Pullman as the cynical Realtor hired to look after Frank, Luke Wilson as the gay AA member assigned as Frank's sponsor, and the always amusing Dennis Farina as Irish mobster Edward O'Leary.

For die-hard Ferrell fans, this could be the ultimate test. He has been playing variations of "Elf" for five years, and his antics have grown as stale as Jackie's socks.

School of Rock may be to Black what "The Nutty Professor" was to Jerry Lewis, or "Groundhog Day" was to Bill Murray - that rare, perfectly tailored opportunity to play against one's broadest impulses. Not to neutralize them, necessarily, but to tame them and turn them into something very human and charming.

Julie Taymor says the idea for her Across the Universe was "to create an original musical using only the songs of the Beatles." That's like saying you're going to create a new element using only gold.

This is a midnight stoner movie if there ever was one.

Bad as he is, Fallon cannot claim Taxi's worst moment. That belongs to Ann-Margret.

You'd have to go back to Blake Edwards' "10" and Bo Derek to find a mainstream movie that spends more time gawking at a star's body - or a more cooperative and alluring subject.

Kassell has serious talent. The movie is beautifully shot, and the performances are all spot-on. But like many young screenwriters today, she has overwritten her script to the point where everything is simply too tidy for the messy psychological material.

It will make you laugh, and feel like crying.

Savvy, unflinching, often bloody documentary.

If Lazarescu's experience is typical in the former Soviet bloc, democracy hasn't done much to humanize the bureaucracy.

Michael Wranovics' documentary replays this sorry chapter in all-American greed in glorious detail.

He (Hogan) and the other backers of the movie are betting that Dundee has been gone long enough to make him seem fresh, or -- like that old uncle -- at least welcome.

Hideously ugly to look at and not even worth following.

Hoffman is a fine actor in a rut, working on a string of socially alienated characters who are variations on the same theme. That's too bad, because the story being told around his static presence is amazing.

Tony Gilroy, co-author of the superb Jason Bourne film trilogy, makes a stunning directorial debut with Michael Clayton, an out-of-courtroom drama that helps solidify George Clooney's acting bona fides.

Haroun is deft at handling the joys and pain of childhood. He neither condescends nor ­­over-sentimentalizes. It is a story of separation anxiety (for Amine) and coming of age (for Tahir) and it's universal.

Danny Deckchair may be a trifle, but it offers a breezy lift for the dog days of summer.

Kempner demonstrates how the star's success and dignified bearing inspired a generation of Jews to fight through the ethnic barriers in all fields.

Though made 31 years after D-Day, the dramatic scenes have the period look of a '40s movie, which links them perfectly with the stunning archival footage.

Despite being abandoned in the late going by his director, Cheadle gives one of the year's most fully realized performances, and Henson is a revelation.

Uneven but fitfully entertaining.

You may need fortification for this astonishingly bad movie.

What's here is a glimpse not into how far people will go to win a reality TV show, but how far greedy writers and producers will go to degrade, debouch and enrich themselves.

Mighty Joe Young may be the season's most appealing family bet. Certainly, it has an appealing cast.

There is a little of all of us in their awkwardness, fears and neuroses, and we root for their success in the mundane as if they were ascending Everest. Elling is still in the running for 2002's most uplifting movie.

As sensitive to its subject as it is stark in its rendering.

Belvaux says his tryptich...are stand-alone movies that can be enjoyed in any order. I disagree. None is a complete experience and "An Amazing Couple" can be easily skipped. But the first and third add up to something very poignant and satisfying.

Deeply disturbing, but dramatically realized, and the movie marks Burke as a young talent to watch.

Charles Shyer's update is a pointlessly tame romp.

There's nothing here for commercial reality-TV shows, just history caught on the run, offering a raw and timeless reminder of the day we had our eyes opened to the power of blind hatred.

A love story told from the point of impact, at the heart, and no conventional resolution could be more profound.

A small gem in the postholiday depression.

A fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Close call as to who's career has sunk farthest.

It's in French with French actors, but its film noir sensibilities have a filtered Hollywood vibe about them. In other words, it's pretty much a mess.

The stories are eye-opening and heartwarming at the same time, but you'll be moved less by empathy for the characters than by the summoning of your own emotional memories. This movie is personal.

Rarely does an animated character merge as perfectly with the persona of the actor providing his voice as the star of Monsters, Inc. does with John Goodman.

A masterpiece? Probably. Ingenious? Absolutely! Unforgettable? I'll see you at the 10th-year anniversary.

Does an excellent job of telling Kerry's side of it.

I don't know if it was intentional, but Drake seems to come out of the same sandy hole in which our troops found the cowering Saddam Hussein.

A movie-movie about the movies.

Why remake a horror film if you can't make it scarier?

This is the biggest lowdown, rotten, disgusting, depraved sideshow in the megaplex. Check your brains, your taste and your self-respect right over there with the bearded ticket taker.

The jokes come in endless flurries, and if they're working - even at a ratio of 1 in 4 - you're laughing more than you're not. The Zucker-Proft team simply has a higher batting average than the Wayans.

A vanity project by a moderately talented artist that has moments of real brilliance in it.

The script (written by Susan Minot from a story by Bertolucci) suffers from the same tired blood as his characters, and his direction is often ponderously self-conscious.

Parents, who are more apt to be bored by the simple story line, are going to be amazed nevertheless by the smooth, convincing animation that lends Stuart his lifelike physicality and expressive facial gestures.

Johnson combines the elements of classic 1940s film noir and "Rebel Without a Cause"-style teen angst in a movie that is as phony as it is ambitious. It's an A+ film school exercise with zero emotional or social impact.

Don't like archetypes? Wait till you meet the cliches.

The scourge of the 20th century has become a sage and hero to a new generation of haters.

Ultimately, it's the casting and the story that are too good to be true. If a newspaper's classified ad section could document a success like this one, there would never be a slump.

What we need to remember, what Black Hawk Down reminds us, is that there are no safe missions when you're chasing bad guys. Especially when you have to chase them down a hole.