Jack Mathews

Most of the film is way too goofy for all but the most thumbstruck Hitchhiker.

The Last Time feels like a script that was written backwards, as if the twist ending occurred to Caleo first and he then filled out a story to get to it. Fair enough, except getting there in this case is just no fun.

Goldblum, who has made psychological confusion his actor's stock-in-trade, gives Nolan's behavior just enough credibility to keep his quest alive for us, and Heche gives a delightfully unaffected performance as Lucy.

The Specialist allows Eichmann to convict himself, not of complicity in the Holocaust -- to that he pleads guilty, by reason of nationalism -- but as a man unfazed by his own inhumanity.

I watched A Good Woman with a fixed smile frequently interrupted by giggles, but I didn't believe a second of it.

There isn't a flicker of chemistry between these old pros in Andre Techine's peculiar melodrama.

Evening is a case study in how a subtly evocative book can elude the most well-intentioned filmmakers and some of our finest actors.

At times, the giddy tone makes it feel like a musical set on the eve of Pearl Harbor, but the acting is uniformly good and it's an absolutely gorgeous film to watch.

The second half of Antoine de Caunes' Monsieur N., about the post-exile life and death of Napoleon, plays less like a movie than a suggestion for one. This is a great disappointment because the first half is very cinematic and very compelling.

The result is a performance that is neither funny nor empathetic, and the romance that develops between the dentist and the junkie patient is not strong enough to support the mystery.

Just as surely as the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, this domestic comedy follows a direct path through every crisis, every resolution and every sentimental heartbeat laid out in the script.

Has many of the qualities that made the actor such a great target for self-parody in Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" - it's sober, deliberate, self-consciously mysterious and no fun at all.

This particular script is deplorable. It's a pure cribbing of Ron Bass' screenplay for "Sleeping With the Enemy," which was no prize itself.

The dialogue between the captive and the captors gets a little didactic, and the ending is as contrived as it is cynical. Weingartner obviously has more in common with the rich man than the kids.

More than the sum of its parts.

Perversely funny.

That's a lot just to justify a cute title, but cuteness is the engine driving the slight, obvious but occasionally very funny film.

Given the tragic events that actually happen, "Nickleby" ends not knowing what it was supposed to be. But those first two acts are nearly worth the price of admission.

Josh Hamilton gives a marvelously engaging performance in this fish-out-of-water comedy.

Manhattan has always been a fat target for apocalypse filmmakers, but with its 9/11-inspired imagery, Matt Reeves' breathlessly fast-paced Cloverfield is going to resonate with New York audiences in a way no other horror film has.

One of the most original and ultimately confounding mind games to reach the screen since "The Usual Suspects."

The Spanish writers-directors often overreach for humor, and really overreach for a happy ending. But there's a strong heart beating beneath the foolishness and one wonderful performance from Leonor Watling.

Essentially conversations, confrontations, and an extremely pat -- and very verbal -- reconciliation.

Joy Ride is plenty spooky but there's also plenty of comic relief -- mostly from the perennially goofy Zahn.

Built from a perfect story-telling collaboration.

If you're game for something different, it's worth a few giggles.

Like previous films by the literary-minded auteur John Sayles, Honeydripper takes forever to develop its characters, its period and its location. But once it's done all that, the payoffs are rich.

Having these characters interact is both the joke and raison d'etre of "League." Its story is beyond banal.