Jan Stuart

It is chockablock with brutality, but the violence is of the high-minded, self-congratulatory sort that indicates without actually showing.

Mortimer gives a terrifically keyed-up performance that is nicely complemented by the wholesomely chipper Harrelson, who seems to be drawing inspiration from Fred MacMurray's gallery of Disney dads.

Audiences who feel battered by Hollywood's usual hard-sell approach to farce may be disarmed by Koepp's soft touch and inclined to credit blandness as understatement.

If you let it be what it is, Donnie Darko will knock you flat.

A funkadelic fun ride that shrewdly reinvigorates the eye-popping styles and pulpy veneer of '70s blaxploitation flicks.

Bracing and remarkably compact drama, which invests some standard movie tropes of rough-and-tumble urban life with deep feeling and urgency.

The Irish-pretty Cyrus exudes a goofball vitality and sunny work ethic that ultimately wins you over, despite the slickness of her vehicle. The 3-D camera throws drumsticks and confetti in our faces, but the technical effects seem superfluous to the star's bona-fide energy.

High-grade lampoon, at once more consistently on-the-money and less patronizing than anything off the Christopher Guest conveyor belt.

All of the actors convey the ebullience of old friends convening for an on-the-cheap reunion. The shared good spirits result in a diminutive comedy with a bounty of charm and shrewd humor.

If Lonesome Jim feels like it's perpetually on the verge of evaporating, Buscemi brings to the material the boundless empathy for misfits and screw-ups he displayed in "Trees Lounge."

SomeBody reclaims well-trodden territory with an innovative hand that feels fresh as tomorrow.