Kim Morgan

Though the picture is definitely flawed, it maintains a joie de vivre that's surprisingly refreshing.

Though it's debatable whether Sandler is squandered or just supremely annoying here, the film's flaws aren't entirely his fault.

Rat Race isn't a stupid movie -- it's an aggressively stupid movie that journeys into realms of absurdity that are, well, aggressively funny.

If the movie wasn't about an actor but instead about an insurance salesman or a plumber who looked like James Gandolfini, it might come off better. But then, who says a plumber would care either?

The newest, and probably first, true cheerleading movie.

Delivers the oft-trod subject of boys' sexuality with intelligence and freshness.

Really a vehicle for Dunst, which would be fine if only the vehicle were more inspired.

Plods and frustrates, but forgivably, it is a deeply felt picture.

Taking the film as a thriller, it's neither exciting nor scary, hampered by a middle that plays much too long.

For all its superfluous and self-conscious moments, the picture is a draining kick.

It's a fascinating look into what Spielberg truly loves, but it's not so much a masterpiece as a nice milestone. [2002 re-release]

The film wears out its welcome by the halfway mark, becoming a silly spectacle.

Sometimes funny but mostly stupid film directed by Adam Shankman might have worked had it been made on TV by Norman Lear in the 1970s.

It's an odd, overly long picture, filled with too many pauses but dotted with just enough funky band sequences to keep you interested.

Alas, the movie just isn't bouncy, fresh or funny enough. It's just not blonde enough.

Scooby-Doo is bad. Let's just get that right out of the way. Filled with unclever quips, tired humor, a lazy silliness and bland execution, the picture is a tedious puff of nothing.

The film is weighed down by the decision of director David Atkins to throw too much into the mix. The result is a serious problem of consistency.

You can't help but think how much better this film would be had Woody Allen directed it...How much more acerbic fun would it be to see Judy Davis playing stenographer to a neurotic, writer's-blocked Woody?

Doesn't give off the same happy feel of the Indian arranged-marriage movie "Monsoon Wedding." Rather, it poses hard questions and leaves them unanswered.

Entertaining, well-acted and hopeful about a world in which sexual orientation isn't a big deal, Big Eden is a pretty picture -- it just tends to be a little too perfect and cute for its own good.

A sweet, loopy British comedy filled with good actors and funny moments.

It's almost numbingly sad, but you won't regret watching -- and you'll surely never forget it.

In The Tuxedo, ridiculously, Chan's just a suit. A suit walking Jennifer Love Hewitt's breasts around. Chan deserves better.

An unsteady mixture of treacle and dark comedy that never feels as "dark" as it pretends. Though well-intentioned, it's not terribly compelling.

The best-looking, best-scripted and funniest of Smith's pictures, it's also Smith's sharpest.

It's nice that Demme reveres the Hollywood classic, the French cinema and the glamour of his actors. But nice is all The Truth About Charlie is -- a nice mess.

Crowe understands what's interesting about Nash: He's not a feel-good figure. It's a pity the same can't be said for Howard.

It's still trite and a little too cutesy for its own good. Gay or straight, the cliches remain, but not to a stultifying degree.

Simultaneously modern and yet gorgeously primitive with its budget sets and simple but influential score, this is not just a film re-release but a film event.

Intelligent teens will hate this film, and adults will just be embarrassed.

'N Sync is bouncy, harmless fun. And so is this stupid movie.

Utterly thrilling and enthralling, a commercial film that paces itself wonderfully, never allowing the action or romance to outweigh its story and characters. For mainstream adventure fare, that's quite an accomplishment.

The story sounds horrifying, but the film takes some unfortunate twists and never presents us with a multifaceted character in Paxton. Paxton just doesn't play the nice-but-nuts role with a modicum of terror.

A tough picture to wrap your brain around.

It all makes you realize the importance of the guy who should have played Malkovich's role -- Christopher Walken. He makes films like this bearable.

Though not terrible, and blessed with some nice performances, this Irish-eyes-are-smiling-despite-the-rain-and-nasty-nuns story is Hallmark Hall of Fame material.

Can a film so expertly capture the odious and bitter that it becomes deliciously, disgustingly beautiful? Yes, if that film is 1957's Sweet Smell of Success.

The picture is pinched and predictable. Even with the immensely talented Steve Zahn, an actor who's known to steal scenes and, sometimes, save pictures, the movie is a yawn.

Finding Forrester achieves a distinct success few Hollywood movies can even dream of: It overwhelms and inspires with understatement.

It's too ridiculous, too flatly acted, too action-packed, too, well, fun.

Really, we'd rather just watch a good documentary about the subject. And as the camera flings around, we occasionally forget about what could help the teens and think more about what could help the director: How about a tripod?

Has a few pleasing stylistic flourishes and a potentially Hitchcockian plot, but the writing and rhythm are so off that when the final "shocker" arrives, we have seen it coming or have abandoned caring.

Though moving, Together needed more opera to send us where great music frequently goes -- nearly over the edge.

A flawed fable but an intriguing one nonetheless. It's "Splash" gone existential. How many films can you name like that?

There's more to this movie. Like Pitt at his best, it's pretty, gritty, engrossing and fun.

Little spectacle but much bittersweet sensitivity.

Pablo Berger's subtle satire Torremolinos 73 is almost there. Almost.

A lovely film that requires a leisurely sit to think, Shower is not so much a shower as a bath, and a refreshing one at that.

The best thing about 2 Fast 2 Furious is Tyrese (terrific in Singleton's "Baby Boy"), whose charisma, looks and charm supply the picture with much-needed spark. It's too bad he's stuck in this spotty video game.

An impressive array of themes, stories and sequences.

You have to experience the thing to understand its simultaneous recklessness and care, its humor and sadness in the name of failure, its playful but dismal take on formulaic Hollywood endings.

Though filled with charm and led by three likable characters, the picture spreads its plot points and whimsy so thinly that we can never just relax.

May be the most boring film about forbidden love ever made. Unspectacularly shot on video, terribly scripted, with zombie-like acting that borders on the absurd.

An achievement of accomplished filmmaking and superb acting, L.I.E. puts you in the tough spot of unraveling how you feel about what you've viewed.

This is a beautiful, moving picture about a love affair between two very different Chinese men.

A tepid disappointment that contains one mediocre chase scene and a lot of wasted talent.

So tedious that the experience results in nearly two hours of squirming and cringing.

Takes the typical detective-hunting-a-serial-killer story and twists it into a creepy, enigmatic bit of psychological terror that by its final ambiguous scene leaves you truly chilled.

Good, but, sadly, not good enough. Well-acted, beautifully shot and splendidly costumed, it's superior to the original in its looks, but not as potent or meaningful in its story line.

Terrific musical numbers and interesting premise.

A profoundly anxious picture that from its first frame holds you, clenched, never able to let go, even after its unresolved coda.

This film might've worked better as a comedy.

Too sugary to be funny or offensive or even offensively funny, though any kind of funny would be welcome here.

Understated fun, but not much more.

Funny, irreverent and moving, the unconventional Shrek may mock fairy tales, but in the process, creates its own.

Filled with wonderful performances, especially by Hedaya and Walsh, Blood Simple remains a tight, beautifully ugly, neo-noir classic.

This film disappointingly feels like a sometimes brilliantly acted, often gorgeously filmed re-enactment of the television show "Unsolved Mysteries."

Its cool, glib observations, delivered by good-looking creative people who live like the cast of "Friends" gone cynical, becomes forced and often stupid. The film goes off the track enough to make for an interesting train wreck.

Two-thirds of the way through, it falls apart into TV-movie-of-the-week land, even with the rhapsodic Nastassja Kinski in the lead.

Limps shallowly along.

Quiet, sexual, disturbing, often beautifully melancholic, Rain, as seen through the eyes of a precocious girl, recalls a parental split-up with sobering accuracy. It reminds us why so many teen-agers go through a sullen phase -- and sometimes never shake it off.

With little cohesion and no respect for the editing process, Old School often feels like someone threw film clips on the floor and strung them together willy-nilly.

A movie that drags.

So what will happen? Sadly, some overacting and a bad "And Justice For All"-style speech at the end.

Though exploring, among other things, fallibility, homosexuality, injustice and loss, the picture seems afraid to really make any kind of strong statement, whether political or psychological.

Balancing homage with creativity, the picture is tight, stylishly filmed, clever and, importantly, scary.

A film with almost zero redeeming value.

Never maintains the spark necessary to sustain a feature film.

An erotic mystery of sorts, the film works because it's laconic rather than talky and its actors are all up for the material.

Just pass on K-PAX.

Stays engaging, chiefly, through the textured, ambiguous performances of Spacey, Moore and Dench.

Though the acting in "Sidewalks" is uniformly fine, particularly among the female cast, it's hard to glimpse any meaningful vision, sly insights or cinematic flair.

Waddington's wonderfully textured film is an unforced work of naturalism.

A blending of international film sensibilities -- France meets Hollywood meets Hong Kong -- with a very cool anti-hero protagonist.

An affable, entertaining and poignant experience of the sort not normally afforded by space movies.

An odd, jumbled, beautifully wrought, often confusing work, this animated feature manages to be a compelling, exhilarating experience.

The film is tangled but not chaotic, thoughtful but not terribly deep. Still, it's intimate, entertaining, and most impressive, genuine.

Another Bond film that turns out to be an unspectacular spectacle, at times winking and fun but too often plodding and hackneyed. That said, as usual Brosnan is terrific, walking through dunderhead moments and a tedious plot with grace.

About how women see themselves in terms of bodies, age and careers, but without all the "you go girl" tripe crammed into so many other movies of this ilk.

An unfortunate example of a small picture that feels small.

If you've recently watched that great skateboarding documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys," Grind will play like a soft-pedaled Afterschool Special.

Every once in a while a picture comes along that captures not just love, but romance in all its fear, yearning, fantasy, eroticism and unexpected epiphanies. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer's The Princess and the Warrior is one such film.

It easily is the most beautiful picture released in America so far this year, perhaps one of the most beautiful films ever made.

Marshall does such a good job re-creating the otherworldly energy of a temple of youth that the rest of the picture feels strained and sometimes trite. Nevertheless, parts can be absorbing, reflective and touching.

So often out of control that it becomes absurd and exasperating.

A slow burn. A portrait of the mundane humor and horror of everyday life, it scalds nerves you may have never thought existed. And yet the film is funny, almost hilariously at times.

Quite simply, the "Tomb Raider" series has been flat-out boring, even with the talented and fun Jolie -- who needs to take off those harnesses and get back to real movies. She deserves better.

The clothes are worth it; nothing else is.