Jami Bernard

Visually, Robots is fun and imaginative. The wow factor is enhanced in the IMAX version, also opening today.

It's a triumph of the human spirit that so many people in deadly jobs are able, nevertheless, to marry and have a few happy moments despite lives of hellish labor. Glawogger's intrepid camera finds both the shame and the grace in it.

As junky as the movie is, you've gotta love its immersion in the preposterous and its naive hope that street credibility and attitude, along with a need for speed, are all that's really necessary in this big, bad world.

Bai Ling plays a resourceful prostitute from a Malaysian refugee camp who grows harder and more alienated by the day. Nick Nolte, Tim Roth and Temuera Morrison offer strong supporting performances.

The movie does have one very perplexing major flaw. It throws in some minor-character narration toward the end, as if test audiences had lost their ability to concentrate, and this was the filmmaker's only solution for getting us back on track.

The sepia-tinted palette of Ask the Dust drips, reeks and creaks of the seamy side of a city that takes more often than it gives.

An unexpected delight.

It's a virtual clip reel of grandly comic moments that remind us what a good actress can do when parts are scarce.

The actors are unknowns, but Ryan does a lot with her little downturned mouth. There are as many shades of anxiety as there are shades of blue in the sea, and Ryan manages to find them all.

This genteel confection skews toward older audiences - those who go for "Calendar Girls," "Ladies in Lavender" and "Mrs. Brown."

A crowd pleaser, even if it is unremarkable.

Unleashed serves two masters, each one disappointingly: It's a brutal series of over-amped fights, and it's a touching story of human nature at war with itself.

What Possession reminds us more than anything is that love is more exotic at the safe remove of history. The irony is that LaBute is more at home chronicling the present, yet that's where this movie falls apart.

Funny, yet appalling.

The requisite set piece, which will remind you of the treetop sequence in "Crouching Tiger," involves a fight atop a forest of burning poles, exactly the kind of thing you want in a movie like this.

A lush, panoramic, dizzyingly portrait of the many-tentacled entrepreneur Howard Hughes. Unfortunately, though it may finally gain an Oscar for director Martin Scorsese, it is not his best work. The movie is disappointingly flat.

Best of all is newcomer Justine Clarke playing a dour illustrator. Clarke's fascinating features register emotions at war, but always governed by a sense of self-deprecating humor.

The movie mostly sustains its excitement of the hunt. But the real star is the panoramic, beautifully composed cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond. Whether he truly loved the African locations or is cursed with "a gift" doesn't matter; the dynamics of the story often flag, but the visuals lend a palpable excitement. [11 Oct 1996, p.49]

Sophisticated in that European way and predictable in that Hollywood way.

After a few movies in which Paltrow was in danger of becoming a caricature of herself, she's back in rare form.

Alnoy's unnerving mood piece is spare and atmospheric, even funny. The movie is accomplished, but gets hung up on arty composition.

There's magic afoot, even if the movie is more serviceable than magical.

Wood is compelling, but Charlie Hunnam ("Nicholas Nickleby") is the one to watch.

Nolte, at least, delivers his lines with laser accuracy, and gives The Golden Bowl the life that so much cogitation could have drained from it.

Horror fans will still find it worthwhile. The ending is also a nice twist on the slasher genre.

Phenomenal acting, plus intelligent direction and themes, put The Ballad of Jack and Rose above other indie films about loss of innocence. At the same time, there is something garish about watching a father and daughter struggle with the snake of incest in their ill-advised Garden of Eden.

"Sixth Sense" fans will be intrigued at first, then disappointed.

The title-character's redemption comes very slowly. But if you have patience, this is a stately, beautifully composed story.

Varda injects her sprightly personality into the film, a seasoning that sometimes overwhelms the stew.

Belongs to an intellectually stimulating subgenre that examines the thin line between documentary maker and subject.

One of the small pleasures of the movie is likely to escape American audiences. The bank robber is played by Johnny Hallyday, a pop icon of great magnitude in France, and the old man is played by Jean Rochefort, an acting staple of that country's cinema. The mere juxtaposition of these two personalities forms a comic set of expectations.

Smart, fun and mildly subversive, but it rides the wave of its joke a little too long.

In its unleashing of relentless, cosmic retribution, The Operator is not unlike the recent "Joy Ride."

Turns out to be less than the sum of its wonderfully silly and bizarre parts.

It's a poignant, realistic depiction of the ­elderly, far from the typical view of them as quaint and useless.

It's hard not to feel empowered by Nathalie Baye.

A charming runt of a movie. It's not all it could be, but it's the best the pound had to offer this week.

A daring feminist movie that, while straightforward to a fault, is a rare opportunity to sample a female point of view from Iran, where such a thing is usually a veiled subject.

It's not the best "Little Mermaid" movie - it's totally predictable and its trio of tweeners squeal at a pitch that could break glass. But it's also a bubbly confection about best friends, crushes on preening lifeguards, grrrl power and shades-of-blue fashion tips.

Rough around the edges, but effectively presents the quandary of women during the repressive religious regime.

All this frenzy, all these "quotes" from other movies, and yet Vol. 2 is strangely static - a dulling experience that can safely be admired from afar without it ever engaging the senses.

A hit-and-miss romantic comedy.

The group in Portraits Chinois is a little too diverse and unwieldy to keep emotional track of.

Amusing and good-natured, but necessarily thin.

Popcorn-buyers, beware: This is no "Shrek," with raucous adult humor sailing over the heads of wee ones. This is "Sesame Street"-level, with white hats, black hats and simple moral messages.

A terrible movie by all reasonable standards -- yet it leaves a sweet taste.

Here’s a British spin on the familiar struggle of the couch potato who plans any minute now to get off his duff.

Grand passion, secrecy, world politics and mortal danger provide a heady mix for this spectacularly beautiful movie. If only the accents were as reliable as the azure of the sea.

This Canadian film is extraordinarily low-key, considering the explosive secrets the sisters unearth, but that is part of its strength.

This is not challenging filmmaking by any means, more like a comfortable old slipper. But it's a perennial that's guaranteed to please.

The film paints an affectionate portrait of a wry, somewhat addled man whose hard-partying past was in stark contrast with his later life - a fluffy cat nestles in his guitar case while he explains his nickname.

There is a very sharp, funny critique of ambition and self-made gurus in The Mystic Masseur, but it is obscured by a softening bloat.

Modest and polite. That's not a ringing endorsement of Michael Showalter's good-natured comedy, but there are enough laughs in it if you're willing to settle.

A well-acted and surprisingly thoughtful treatment of the same old, same old.

Union is a brilliant spitfire, though one wishes the script had been run past an English major. But the movie's flaws are smoothed over by a rousing soundtrack, some excellent comic performances and the star-making moves of LL Cool J.

Alana De Roma is going to be a tremendous star.

The movie suffers from tipping its hand too easily and hating its subject so much.

There's something sweet yet chilling in When the Sea Rises. If it had explored more of the chill, it might have turned into a knockout, absurdist thriller.

Oughtta be much bettor.

The co-stars genuinely like each other, and their pleasure is infectious.

Little internal logic and too many signposts. It's easy to see who in the neighborhood knows more than they're letting on, even without X-ray vision or ESP.

As a love story, Wimbledon is a washout. As a meditation on sports psychology, it might help improve your game.

Beneath the noisy, farcical surface of John Turturro's Illuminata is a thoughtful and unusually mature meditation on love.

Movies about junkies are often brutal to watch, but Jesus' Son has such a light touch, you have little to fear. Little to gain, too.

A silly buddy caper that should delight the adolescent at heart, even if some of the jokes have been sitting too long in the desert sun.

There's something uniquely gratifying about watching nonprofessionals deliver totally natural performances.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales" were pretty grim, but Criminal Lovers crosses the line and sexualizes your worst fears.

A brilliantly pitch-perfect sendup of a particular type of cheesy movie.