Kevin Crust

Marvin's performance, much enhanced by "The Reconstruction," is a marvel.

The film aims for a light social satire but mainly falls flat. It feels more like a long-lost pilot for some never-aired 1970s sitcom or a misguided sequel to a Billy Joel song.

An undeniably odd film, this ode to pooches is more than just a dog calendar come to life.

It's an ambitious film drenched in sincerity and oozing with nostalgia that, despite the energy provided by its title icon via archival footage, falls flat dramatically in nearly every other way.

There is a guilty-pleasure quality to watching Atkinson at work even when Mr. Bean has overstayed his welcome. The film's lightness makes you wish you were the one headed to the beach.

Surprisingly endearing and chock-full of a genuine appreciation of the moment.

A stunning-to-look-at film marred by a less than searing pace and some narrative incoherence.

In general, the movie doesn't necessarily reveal anything we don't already know but delivers it in a personable, entertaining manner.

Much of the credit for the movie succeeding goes to Thornton. In his able hands, Farmer is not so much someone who simply has faith in what he is doing but a man who believes with incontrovertible knowledge of what can be accomplished.

A first-rate contribution to the Holocaust canon.

As uplifting as anything you will find in theaters.

All three look great and the filmmakers deliver a certain artiness, but their overall triviality and the unpleasantness of the first two make for an extremely distasteful experience.

Horn, who knew Nomi, does an excellent job of evoking the exhilaratingly hedonistic period the film covers as well as the long shadow that the coming of AIDS casts over it.

Full of genuine scares and impressively disturbing effects.

Muddled tale of faith and reason.

A sophisticated, sometimes intentionally silly spy thriller of international intrigue, Fay Grim charts the history of American foreign policy while commenting on current global complications with wink and a nudge.

Tells this most unusual love story with grace and compassion.

Cutting to the beat of the Beasties' propulsive rap, Hörnblowér creates an experience that is simultaneously low-fi and state-of-the-art.

Delightfully demented.

Dunn says he's been defending his choice in music since he was 12, and the film is a carefully organized and thoughtful argument for the merits of metal.

Though the second half contains the fireworks, it's the film's first hour that is ultimately most memorable. Mantel and Skrovan do a commendable job in covering a lot of territory, mixing pertinent and entertaining archival footage with interviews.

Thankfully for audiences, 11th Hour is not without hope. The filmmakers save the most exhilarating portion for last when they ask what's being done about the problems.

Despite the tired premise, Kenan Thompson -- is actually very persuasive as Fat Albert.

Off the Black is a modest, bittersweet character study that hits its mark.

An enchanting tale of friendship and evolvingrelationships, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep" engagingly grafts coming-of-age movie chestnuts onto Scottish folklore.

It's astonishing how dull a movie that packs so much visual overstimulation into its frames can be.

The force of the film is not as profound as Shakhnazarov clearly intended, and The Rider Named Death is easier to respect than enjoy.

Pirates relies more on classical and pop culture-driven references to deliver its worthwhile message.

If there's a theme to this group of films it's the richness of imagery gathered from a variety of forms including hand-drawn, computer-generated and hybrid work. Ink, pixels and clay are brought to life with equal parts darkness and light to evoke stories and moods that are anything but conventional.

An exhilarating story of loyalty and perseverance, The Heart of the Game succeeds as both inspiration and social commentary.

The film toys with the grand themes of love and death as it understatedly moves toward an unsatisfying denouement. Although the narrative is not always compelling, Lu subtly conveys sensuality without nudity in the sex scenes, and something about the boldness of the exercise keeps you watching.

Dreary, spectacle-driven adaptation.

A near continuous assault of clichés, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins doesn't become truly bothersome until its denouement, when it attempts to wring unearned sentiment from the inevitable, awkwardly staged family rapprochement.

Informativeand endearing film.

It will surely yield nominations for worst picture.

An exuberant look at a heady moment in America's soccer past that is well worth remembering.

Nonprofessional actors Boidin and Leroux deliver intense performances which shoulder the emotional weight of the film.

It would be a mistake to think that if you've seen one fish up close and personal you've seen them all. Deep Sea 3D is a total-immersion undersea adventure, in which the oceans' glories are on vivid display in three dimensions.

Unfortunately, the film lacks the suspense and drama to carry the psychological burden placed on it by its makers. Plot strands are dropped like so much lint, and it ends so abruptly that you wonder whether the filmmakers ran out of money, ideas or both.

Despite strong performances by Gerard Butler and Wes Bentley as the leaders of the two factions and crisply directed soccer action, the movie lacks a powerful central presence to carry the drama.

The bedraggled movie limps along to its phony hogwash of an ending, adding the ignominy of sentimentality to its previous sin of being so derivative.

Brazilian Walter Salles, who previously directed the Oscar-nominated films "Central Station" and "The Motorcycle Diaries," guides this stylish remake through treacherous territory to create a distressing, subtly suspenseful film full of emotional resonance.

Writer-director Sean Ellis more-or-less successfully expands his Academy Award-nominated 18-minute short to full length, showcasing his talented young cast to good effect.

The bulk of the movie is a series of sight gags and set pieces that wreak much havoc but little else.

Crass, vacuous exercise in grind-house stylistics.

Not as bad as Bobby's mother's lasagna, neither is Brooklyn Rules anywhere near the best you've ever had, though at times, it may remind you of it.

Sublime psychological thriller.

Numerous films have explored undersea life, but few as comprehensively and as consistently compelling as Deep Blue, by the creators of the "Blue Planet" TV series.

Delightful.

As good as the leads and the supporting cast are, and as much action as gets packed into the film's relatively brief running time, none of it draws us in dramatically.

Blackmail Boy reaches for tragedy but settles for soap opera.

Where Fabled flounders is when it attempts to reconcile the many contradictory story elements.

A dark, riveting thriller.

Regardless of your opinion about Sacco and Vanzetti, the documentary should prove thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Benefits from Caviezel's ability to project earnestness better than nearly any actor currently working, but its near-comic predictability, "What else could go wrong?" plotting and cliché-ridden screenplay sink it.

Dramatically, the movie never veers from its predictable course, but Swank's performance renders the point moot. There likely was a better, more original movie to be made focusing more on the Freedom Writers themselves, but if this more conventional direction had to be taken, it's hard to imagine a more affecting version.

The story that first-time feature filmmaker Curry tells is extremely compelling, but where he really scores is in addressing politics and race in a way that allows events to speak for themselves.

Outdoes recent releases such as "Boogeyman" in the fright department, but the "Dawson's Creek" sensitivity and unsatisfying effects undermine the lupine anxiety.

A threadbare comedy glomming onto the ample talent of its star, Will Ferrell.

Overall, the film lacks cohesion and a true point of view. Further muddling the film's meaning is a voice-over attributed to Jiang Qing, which we learn at the end is fictionalized.

Andreas is way too low-energy to hold the screen as the film's lead, but he was wise to surround himself with a talented cast. Unfortunately, the wooden dialogue and overall shallowness of the writing keep the film from being even an amiable diversion.

Shot in just 24 days, the film staggers under the weight of stale gags and a meandering plot.

There's precious little that is fresh or new about the movie.

Whereas the original film is gleefully crass and energetically paced, the movie musical, weighing in at a robust two-plus hours, is bloated and self-satisfied. Whatever spectacle the stage musical possessed to make it such a box-office behemoth fails to transfer to the screen.

A comedy so inane and tedious that it buries its premise and its various worthy points under too many arch and improbable shenanigans and endless dialogue, much of it seriously under-inspired.

Though Black Snake Moan is unadulterated deep-fried silliness from "Hustle & Flow" filmmaker Craig Brewer, Jackson makes it indisputably more palatable. It's still not a very good movie, but it's intermittently entertaining (and sometimes unintentionally funny).

Devoid of verbal wit, instead relying on a relentless stream of Looney Tunes-inspired violence.

The film dawdles at times. but for the most part Donaldson keeps just the right amount of tension present in each scene.

Fails to be anything more than a mild summertime diversion. Based on the Marvel comic book, it's a prototypical air conditioner movie.

Smart, compassionate filmmaking that captures both the intricacies and the tragedy of contemporary adolescence.

There is something bizarrely compelling about the movie. It's slower than watching a train wreck but invokes that same level of disbelief.

The filmmaker captures a certain exaggerated verisimilitude, but the comedy is surprisingly flat. The cast sells the occasional one-liner, but a Reynolds smirk can take you only so far.

Maddeningly exploitative, the film takes a provocative subject -- pedophilia -- and wraps it in a sterile, vacuum-sealed package, devoid of meaning.

Though the movie bears some of the Farrellys' trademark outrageous humor, it has a sweet demeanor and makes a noble statement.

My Boss's Daughter is not awful. It is a genial youth comedy that serves Kutcher well as a vehicle. That's it. That's all it tries to be

A smart, well-paced documentary that balances the man's triumphs with his rare failures and discerningly explores the darker side of his power.

Delivers a heckuva story marred by some credibility problems but lands the majority of its punches via subtly powerful performances and a moving undercard of paternal connection.

For what is essentially a screwball comedy, Over Her Dead Body is surprisingly uninspired, a frothy concept that offers little satisfaction in the way of execution.

The movie nicely captures the area around Baldwin Hills, is crisply written by Kriss Turner and portrays the upper-middle class black community seldom seen in mainstream TV and film. However, the characterizations, even the leads, rarely rise above archetypes.

A persuasive if not groundbreaking drama.

As extraordinary as all of this imagery is, it is the film's sound design that takes it to another level. A quirky, electric mix of ambient sound, effects and music by composer Bruno Coulais and sound designer Laurent Quaglio gives the film its heart and its sense of humor.

The disappointingly pedestrian computer-animated Over the Hedge will be more entertaining for little tykes than their older siblings and parents, and would not seem out of place on Saturday morning television.

For fans of Nunez's previous work, it's almost as if he put in all the clichés he would normally avoid and left out the wonderfully textured internal moments that made "Ruby" and "Ulee's Gold" unique.

Jumper is all high concept with little invested in characters or story.

Fans of the band will likely be disappointed (its music is represented by a handful of covers), and younger audiences will wonder what the fuss is about.

The film does a fairly remarkable job of capturing the attitude of the festival, covering its evolution from quaint little Woodstock knockoff into something much larger that is both hallucinatory and hypnotic. It's Mardi Gras meets Burning Man with an excellent, revolving house band.

Strictly for the very young who will find giggles in the anthropomorphic mash-ups and won't be too distracted by the predictably mawkish sitcom plot.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan milks the film's one joke for all it's worth - which isn't much - before settling into the rote rhythms of a buddy picture.

The teenager's journey through a nightmarish reverie presents hallucinogenic imagery that simultaneously dulls the senses and hot-wires the imagination, but it never fully engages emotionally.

The cartoonish movie might have made for a funny half-hour short or sitcom pilot but runs out of track well before its conclusion.

Despite a fine cast, the film feels as lost as Howard, unsure of its direction or tone.

The result is a fresh, straightforward portrayal of what the film calls "the least visible ... least known ... least understood ... country in the world."

Has its rewards for those up to the challenge of tackling its nonlinear structure and brooding nature.