Jonathan Foreman

It's a shame that the book "We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young" fell into the hands of writer-director Randall Wallace ("Braveheart"), a filmmaker who wouldn't recognize subtlety and understatement if they were to attack him in the street.

The result is inept, tedious kitsch that even at its best feels like John Waters minus the joie de vivre.

The whole thing is shot in an irritating, self-conscious way.

Uses the compelling true story of the triumph of the Enigma code-breakers as background for an invented but believable story of love, betrayal and heroism.

Slight but entertaining and occasionally touching.

A misfiring black comedy oddly reminiscent of all those bad 1990s movies about strippers getting killed at bachelor parties.

Hollywood movies are rarely as contemptuous of the audience as Dragonfly, with its half-witted, treacly New Age sappiness and its mechanical borrowings from other, better supernatural thrillers.

There is hardly a moment during this overlong, stunningly smug exercise in moral self-satisfaction when you actually care about a character, real or invented.

Spectacular special effects and sets.

Fascinatingly, many of the interviewees disagree vehemently about Holmes' personality: some of his co-stars and colleagues found him repellently abusive and selfish.

It's only because the performances are so vividly entertaining -- Mandvi and Puri are particularly good -- and the painstakingly reconstructed locations so lovely that the saggier sequences are tolerable.

Neither convincing nor remotely dramatic.

If it weren't for a terrific central performance by the Icelandic pop singer Bjork, Dancer in the Dark would be all but unwatchable.

But even if The Cat's Meow is unsubtle and overlong, in its jaundiced way it convincingly captures a fascinating period in Hollywood history.

Still worth watching for Dong Jie's performance -- and for the way it documents a culture in the throes of rapid change.

The result is a remarkably beguiling documentary, on a number of levels.

A miracle of badness, a kind of art- house "Showgirls" -- which actually exceeds "Showgirls" in its self-indulgence, shallowness and sheer stupidity.

Bedeviled by labored writing and slack direction.

A real pleasure, a sweet, funny, ensemble comedy...utterly authentic.

It's a funny and occasionally poignant movie.

Kevin Smith's attempt to combine sketchy low comedy with long-winded theological speculation results in a mostly unfunny and occasionally tedious mess.

Peter Farrelly is angry at Miramax for marketing his and his brother Bobby's new film as a follow-up to their surprise smash hit, "There's Something About Mary."

You have to sit through 90 minutes that feel like three hours.

It's often hilarious, and there is lots of the zippy, apparently improvised dialogue that made "Swingers" such a pleasure.

When it was first performed in theaters a couple of years after the L.A. riots took place, Twilight: Los Angeles must have been very powerful. Unfortunately, director Mark Levin's filmed version lacks that impact.

Much of Tomcats is actually boisterously, crudely entertaining.

Uneven, self-conscious but often hilarious spoof.

One of those thriller-comedy combos that never get the balance quite right.

Darkness Falls was formerly known as "Tooth Fairy," but could just as well have been titled "Dumb Then Dumber" for the way its plot makes decreasing sense even by the low standards of B horror flicks.

It feels less predictable and derivative than it is, thanks to Gus Van Sant's deft direction and two fine central performances.

A formulaic and predictable movie that combines minimal characterization with some irritating implausibility.

But it is Thurman who stands out, with a marvelous, full-blooded performance, her best in some time, as tragic Charlotte.

Despite some genuinely funny scenes, American Desi turns out to be inferior to the as yet unreleased "ABCD" and even last year's "Chutney Popcorn."

A crowd-pleasing ensemble piece, whose story goes exactly where you want it to.

A misguided exercise - a crude merger of "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Schindler's List" that somehow reminds you of "Hogan's Heroes."

Egoyan treats the Armenian genocide and its aftermath as a metaphor for cruelty and denial -- an exercise in either pretension or timidity that exploits this tragedy.

Fluffy, inconsistent, but enjoyable.

Courageous, convincing performance by Dunst.

Almost everything about Ice Age proves to be disappointingly generic.

Oddly undramatic.

The most effective moments in Taymor's gorgeous, surprisingly romantic Frida are those that evoke the visual world from which Kahlo's work was formed or the paintings themselves, often using clever animation and other special effects.

Ed Radtke's film-fest favorite does at least boast some fine acting, excellent photography and an authentic feel for life on the highway.

Surprisingly smart and satisfying.

A reminder of just how good Hollywood storytelling can be.

Familiar and predictable enough, especially if you have seen Hollywood serial-killer thrillers like "Se7en."

Mostly an unfunny, rather dull affair.

The movie that deserved to win the Oscar for foreign-language film, and one of the best movies ever made about life behind the Iron Curtain.

This second installment of Lucas Belvaux's acclaimed "Trilogy" is decidedly inferior to the first: a farce that simply isn't funny.

Wilde's masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the best play of the 19th century. It's so good that its relentless, polished wit can withstand not only inept school productions, but even Oliver Parker's movie adaptation.

A unique, priceless portrait of the now legendary leader, and of his beautiful country when it was in the grip of a disastrous civil war.

Unfortunately, the mind and motivation of Otomo -- remain a mystery.

It's frightening enough, to be sure, but too often it feels like a well-executed but rote exercise.

It proves once again that it doesn't matter if the camera is dancing a jig on the ceiling if the storytelling is no good.

But it's more than a crowd-pleaser shot at spectacular Rocky mountain locations -- it's almost revolutionary.

The Rock deserves better than The Rundown, a brisk, good- hearted but predictable and uninspired - not to mention bone-crunchingly violent - action comedy.

Its plot and political symbolism manage to be both over-familiar and confusingly muddled.

Better Than Chocolate is well-filmed and for the most part well-acted. But its technical professionalism only serves to make the amateurishly crude patches of Maggie Thompson's script more obvious. [13 Aug 1999, p.062]

One of the more entertaining documentaries to come along in some time.

Merely a watery, poorly directed update of "Clueless."

A genuinely clever plot.

Unfortunately, you really only hear about prostitution from the side of the pimp.

One of those films that takes up a potentially fascinating subject only to fumble it.

Francois Ozon, perhaps France's hottest director of the moment, is often better creating stylish visuals than dramatically credible situations, but Criminal Lovers is never boring.

The pace slackens a little after the first hour, but the photography by Remi Adefarasin and music by Magnus Fiennes keep the emotion stoked.

Better than any automobile flick put out by Hollywood in a while and, thanks to some genuinely exciting moments, it is easily the most entertaining so far of this summer's big, brainless action movies.

Represents a kind of progress. Where once only a few ultra-talented, lucky black filmmakers got to make big studio movies, now we have standard-issue Hollywood schlock that happens to be made by, about and for African-Americans.

With uncommon ineptitude even by the standards of contemporary action flicks, Kyle's script submerges the inherently dramatic tale of the K-19 under a pile of clichés, while failing to tell you enough about the characters for their actions to make much sense.

A quietly compelling documentary that is refreshing in both form and content.

Vulgar and lewd and raunchy like you wouldn't believe, and absolutely hilarious from beginning to end.

Visually accomplished and wonderfully acted.