Joe Leydon

Once again displaying the kinetic grace, authoritative physicality and heavy-duty footwear that have made her a cult favorite for fans of the “Underworld” franchise, Beckinsale is fun to watch in both the real and fantasy fight sequences that take up much of the briskly paced Jolt.

Manages the difficult feat of being genuinely scary and sharply self-satirical all at once.

Mason, a close friend of Hutchins, constructs a propulsive and compelling narrative by skillfully interlacing interviews with people involved in the tragedy — including the OSHA investigator who uncovered a pattern of risky behavior on the “Rust” set — with news footage, police interrogations, and video recorded on cellphones and police minicams.

Distinctive, physically ravishing indie is a natural for fests, but it's questionable whether this sometimes involving, sometimes obscure pic will have appeal beyond the specialty market.

Small children who will accept it as rock-'em, sock-'em excitement with a touch of gender-specific empowerment, and hipper teens and grown-ups who can appreciate the whole thing as a semisatirical hoot.

As discomfortingly fascinating as listening to a couple's heated argument at a table near yours in a restaurant.

At heart an unabashedly retro work, reveling in the cliches and conventions of the slasher horror pics that proliferated in the early 1980s.

Will please devotees without attracting many, if any, new converts.

The screenplay by Chris Dowling and Tyler Poelle is, at best, predictable pulp with a smidgen of religion. Indeed, the characters are so thinly written that they are defined entirely by the actors portraying them. But director Ben Smallbone (brother of the movie’s lead player) is adept at generating suspense.

Newcomer Rachel Hendrix grabs attention and sustains sympathy as a lovely yet troubled 19-year-old student determined to unlock the secrets of her past after learning the circumstances of her birth.

Sufficiently sweet to serve as a date movie for all ages, Lost for Words comes across as almost subversively retrograde in its old-fashioned approach to charting the slow blossoming of a cross-cultural romance.

Character's multiple mid-life crises could make this genuinely engaging drama especially appealing to older viewers.

There are some very funny bits and pieces scattered amid the proceedings, along with a few darkly comical gags that appear to belong in a different movie, but are more than welcome here.

For the most part, Lemmon, like Matthau, recycles shtick from earlier, better pictures. But then again, their roles call for little else, and Out to Sea actually benefits from their stock turns. [30 June 1997, p.65]

It’s a marked improvement over Feifer’s own “Catch the Bullet,” released just last September — and it features a ferociously nasty turn by Bruce Dern in a role that recalls a character from yet another golden oldie, Walter Brennan’s vicious Old Man Clanton in “My Darling Clementine.”

A B movie that somehow won the lottery and got an A-movie cast and director.

Not quite a three-pointer, but definitely more than an airball, "Celtic Pride" is an uneven but largely likable basketball-themed comedy that should lay up decent B.O. numbers and perform even better in the homevid arena.

Modestly engaging but mostly unexceptional.

More apolitical moviegoers are likely to simply enjoy the runaway train of action set pieces that Wu propels with his flimsy but serviceable plot, and dismiss all the jingoist chest-thumping as roughly akin to John Rambo’s stated desire to refight the Vietnam War — and, dammit, win this time! — in “Rambo: First Blood Part II.”

Ganem has sufficient verve and appeal to sustain interest in both of her characters, and the sporadic tweaking of telenovelas and the fans who love them is often quite clever.

Filmed on Tennessee and California locations that convincingly double for everything from Fort Stewart to Iraq, Indivisible feels impressively edgy during battle scenes, especially during a suspenseful firefight set in the streets of Al Sakhar Province.

Commands attention less as historical counterpoint than as a sturdy showcase for the neatly balanced lead performances of Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson.

Imagine a Troy Donahue-Sandra Dee teen romance of the early ‘60s with an inoffensive undercurrent of social consciousness, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from director David L. Cunningham’s thoroughly predictable but lightly enjoyable tale of love and prejudice in 1920s Hawaii.

Often plays more like "Tyler Perry's Greatest Hits" as it recycles various elements from the writer-director's earlier works.

Connor and co-director Michael Worth allow Fort McCoy to proceed at an unhurried pace, giving Stoltz ample opportunity to subtly convey undercurrents of guilt and anger percolating beneath his character’s affable exterior.

Ice Cube continues his evolution from hard-core rapper to multihyphenate filmmaker with "The Players Club," a messy but lively B-movie that recalls the more spirited comedic dramas of the '70s blaxploitation era.

A hagiographic portrait of the standup comic and social satirist who never quite reached beyond cult status in the U.S., American: The Bill Hicks Story might have impressed more of the unconverted had it included more performance footage of its subject.

Devotees of folk and bluegrass -- and, of course, diehard Nickel Creek fans -- are the natural audience for this leisurely paced documentary.