Keith Phipps

However much the film breaks with Disney tradition, it’s still a winning effort that mixes cuteness with dry wit in the service of a fast-paced, emotionally charged adventure tale.

When the credits roll and the mood breaks, Japanese Story finally reveals itself as more dewy-eyed than deep, but as long as the mood holds, it holds fast.

2012 is ultimately only about finding new ways to topple monoliths. Only they don’t feel that new.

A film about as funny as a seeping wound.

The original was a tart dipped in acid; this one's a biscuit sprinkled in Splenda.

The best that can be said is that neither Matthew Perry nor Salma Hayek embarrass themselves, but they're both appealing enough that the same could probably be said if they were starring in a commercial for a hair-replacement system.

As absurd as the situation gets--and the film occasionally launches into surreal asides that only heighten the absurdity--director and star both keep it grounded in the situation's emotions.

Zhang Yimou is a master of intimate character pieces.

Mendes' second effort plays like a familiar song transposed to a minor key, a gangland fable soaked in portent and fatalism until its familiarity ceases to be an issue.

The once-reliable Danes is a particular detriment, but it's really hard to care whether either character escapes from what looks like a really unappealing summer camp.

There's a little bit of everything in Bava's best-known film, the three-part anthology Black Sabbath.

The setup almost needs footnotes, which makes it all the more puzzling that Zombie's obvious love for horror's past would translate into such a joyless, grisly rehashing.

It's a classic B-movie move of making much out of little, and while Let's Scare Jessica To Death isn't quite a top-rank B-movie classic, it at least offers further proof that all the teen-idol stars and CGI effects—or a logical plot, for that matter—mean nothing if they don't make you scared to turn out the lights.

For a film ostensibly about how life means nothing without adventure and unpredictability, Last Holiday all feels as preordained as the film-ending Emeril cameo.

The further Kelly bends his funhouse mirror, the more he loses sight of what it was supposed to reflect. By the end, the image has twisted beyond coherence.

In short, every element suggests Envy ought to be amusing, but the only comparably disastrous movie in recent memory involves Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, and a rapping retarded man.

Through quietly fiery performances by Day-Lewis and Watson, as well as novel-like depth and complexity, The Boxer not only avoids these pitfalls but emerges as a thoroughly engrossing movie.

What it retains is a playful sense of style, that combines with an anything-goes spirit.

When the halves of the film collide in the courtroom climax, it looks like a misbegotten pilot for Law & Order: Usury Victims Unit.

Winter Kills provides a perfect, absurd finale to the half-decade of post-Watergate paranoid thrillers that preceded it and compares favorably to the grand unified conspiracy-theory fictions that followed, such as Oliver Stone's JFK and James Ellroy's book American Tabloid.

McKellen is fine, of course, but the film as a whole offers about as much insight into evil as Ming The Merciless in a “Flash Gordon” serial.

Gibson makes sure that no blow remains unfelt, and his approach can't help but stir the body, but he never touches the soul.

When the twists arrive, they feel like much of the film: creepy and cliché-free, but still terribly wrong.

Anyone looking for handsomely presented, kid-friendly thrills need look no further.

Ultimately, writer-director Joseph Cedar has created a film that resembles a subtitled very special episode of "JAG."

A near-exact cross between Rosemary's Baby, Duel, and The Parallax View, Race With The Devil has problems getting over the flat, TV-style direction by Cleopatra Jones director Jack Starrett, but it gets by on engaging drive-in goofiness, even if it's tough to swallow the idea that mid-'70s Texas swarmed with Satanists.

Director Lian Lunson keeps the tone reverent, making I'm Your Man the cinematic equivalent of a testimonial dinner. But there's a place for that kind of film, particularly for subjects who've earned it.

A deft, funny, fearless, and gloriously tasteless mix of horror and comedy, Re-Animator proves that entertainment value trumps virtually every other concern.